


The Duality Of Awful Men

by ShrineMaidenOfRan



Series: The Crossover Series Nobody Asked For But Everyone Wants [1]
Category: VenturianTale Characters (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Light Swearing, Non-Graphic Violence, also haha gay, others appear but not for long enough to warrent a tag, straight shenangians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-01-25 04:49:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 55,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12523356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShrineMaidenOfRan/pseuds/ShrineMaidenOfRan
Summary: Ghost is used to hopping dimensions, but this new place he's ended up in is something else.  So of course he's going to find his way into trouble.The title of this work is probably going to be changing a few more times before the fic's done, hope you guys don't mind too much.





	1. Far from Buttsville, Toto

**Author's Note:**

> It is a travesty that there isn't any Tale content on this site. Guess I'll just have to MAKE IT MYSELF
> 
> Wow I can't believe I am making a multi chapter story because of Thothchat shenanigans that happened over a month ago.

**Prologue**

Ghost wasn’t sure where he ended up, but it was definitely a long way from Kansas. This was not his first time hopping dimensions, as was the case with a surprising amount of people he knew, but this place takes the cake with the weird. Sideways mushrooms the size of trees, all the decently sized plants that weren’t mushrooms bore grapes, no matter if tree or shrub. Everything is extremely saturated. He hated how...cheery it all looked, as if it’s hiding some great horror behind its quirky and colorful exterior. Ghost looked behind him to see that the door he entered from had completely disappeared. He sighed in relief, at least he had gotten his wish of getting away from those infuriating interns. With nothing else to do, he started down the path towards what he assumed was a city, something had to be happening there. Had to be.

**Main Article**

 

This is easily the best day of Asylum’s life.  Getting married to the love of his life, hand-in-hand standing on a brand new ship.  There isn’t a large crowd of people to witness the ceremony, but everyone that he cared about is there.  Mimi and Lena are aggressively throwing mountain flowers as if it were a competition to see how many they could get in his face, Kajsa is holding the pillow that had the rings on it, Sari was more beautiful than he had ever seen her before, Jerry is standing in the background “keeping watch”, Jordan is rambling loudly about something somewhere…..wait.  Wait no.  He said he would be gone for good this time, that he couldn’t possibly pester Asylum any more.  Maybe, maybe it was just him, maybe if he ignored it he’ll go away.

 

Most people consider the natural language of the Orismer to be aggressive and brutish, but when Asylum hears Sari speak it he couldn’t imagine anything sounding nicer.  He let himself get lost in her voice as she waxed poetic about their eternal love and devotion.

 

Jordan’s voice got louder, as if getting closer, and Asylum continued to ignore it.  He was a professional at ignoring Jordan back when he was a constant, he can do it now.  What he couldn’t ignore, however, was the skittering of small rocks across the new ship’s deck.  As far as he knew nobody else seemed to notice, until Jerry spoke up.

 

“I think that someone wants to speak with you.”  Jerry said, and gestured over the side of the ship towards the land some 50 feet away.  Asylum sighed and walked over to the railing on the ship, already upset at his day being interrupted, to see a tiny guy wearing a gray hoodie chucking rocks and yelling, presumably at him.  They seemed to be the person that has the same voice as Jordan, or maybe it _is_ Jordan and he was just lying about how tall he was.  This person is going on just like he would.  He does have a good throwi- _THWACK!!_ , a rock hit Asylum square in the face, shocking him to stillness momentarily and rocketing his followers into action, weapons out and over the side of the ship to attack Jordan.  Except for Jerry, he doesn’t do much in the way of fighting, he just kinda stands there.

 

Now, normally Asylum would just leave any rando that attacks him to the mercy of his followers, but for this moment he wanted to be **personal** , so he did the only thing that came to his mind in that moment.  Send him rocketing into the sky.

* * *

 

In retrospect, that was not the best idea he had, because he had _no idea where this guy was now_ , and he had to go make sure he doesn’t die horribly, at least where he can’t see it.  Good thing this was his realm to control, so he can stop time for the entire Shivering Isles to find where he had teleported him.  Asylum stopped, and concentrated.  The waves froze, the ship stopped gently rocking, Sari’s hammer stopped swinging in motion which, judging from the gray fabric on the head, had already done damage.  Time has now been stuck in place.  Now, if his logic was running right, since Asylum hadn’t specified where that guy would fall, maybe he’s at the place where Asylum had the same done to him because one of Jordan’s crazy “Fan Challenges”.  As this was the only lead he had, he teleported himself over to the Landing Zone (name in progress).

 

Yes, this was definitely the place, as the gray hoodied lunatic was approximately 5 seconds from hitting the ground and therefore easily spotted.  Before actually attempting to help the situation, Asylum thought it a much better idea to first take in exactly how ridiculous the situation was.  After a while, he came up with the idea of how much more ridiculous it would be with a massive pile of grapes to cushion the fall.  Without giving it a second thought, he spawned a massive pile of grapes, at least twice as tall as he was, and resumed time.  Only after that did he realize he probably shouldn’t be right next to where the guy was going to be landing, turned and ran.  But he wasn’t fast enough, because as soon as he landed grape juice went _everywhere_.

 

“Ew gross, grape juice!” Cries of indignation came from somewhere in the massive pile of grapes, and Asylum burst out laughing, which did absolutely no good for the hoodie gremlin’s anger.  In fact, it motivated him to wade his way out of the squashed grapes and yell some more.  “Stop laughing at me ya weirdo!”

 

“Oh _I’m_ the weird one now?  You’re the one soaked in grape juice after falling from the sky Jordan.” Asylum continued laughing.

 

“Jordan?  I’m not Jordan!  I am Johnny Ghost!  Paranormal Investigator Extraordinaire!”  Asylum kept laughing out of disbelief, making Ghost’s anger overflow and lash out in the form of a right hook, which, instead of connecting with the jaw as intended, hit Asylum’s shoulder.  Asylum stopped laughing and immediately took Ghost’s arm and threw him into a tree with a sickening crunch.  “WHAT WAS THAT FOR?” He managed to get out in between pained breaths.

 

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WERE EXPECTING JORD IT’S A PANIC RESPONSE AT THIS POINT.”  Which was mostly true, as Asylum has been in quite a few near death encounters.  Any perceived physical hostility is met with the best he can muster in his momentarily panicked state.

 

Ghost tried to rise to his feet, but collapsed.  Asylum walked over, and intended to help, only to receive a glare and a blatant refusal of said help.

 

Thinking for a second, Asylum produced a healing potion from his magic pocket and handed it to Ghost, “drink some grape juice, it’ll heal ya.”  No matter what, the crazy powerful dude in front of him had the advantage, so Ghost drank it, waiting for it to be a trap but...it actually made him feel better?  He actually has more energy now than he did when he stumbled into this place.  “I thought you said you’d be gone forever this time.  What happened?”

 

“What?  I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“Sure you do.  You said ‘I lose connections with people when their tale ends’ so why are you here?”

 

“I have NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!!!  All I did was walk through an odd looking door!!  Now I’m here in a place of INSANITY!!!”

 

“That would explain why I was able to fling you into a tree.  And, madness, realm of madness.  That’s where you are.  I’d’ve thought that would have been one of the easier things to remember.”  The tromping of metal boots advancing could be heard in the distance, getting closer.  “Oh shoot, they’re almost here.  Uhm, get up in a tree or something, I’ll try to calm them dow-hahey guys!” Ghost scrambled up a dead tree as fast as he possibly could to avoid the troupe of DEATH WARRIORS(and Jerry) that were rapidly advancing.  Compared to the people Ghost usually dealt with, these guys were armed to the teeth, all metal armor and medieval weaponry that nearly did him in before.  Two women looked and dressed almost identical to each other in iron armor with yellow fabric accents, though one wore a helmet which made them easy to tell from the other.  The one with the helmet was currently hacking at the tree, making it shake and Ghost extremely concerned about how much time he had before he gets chopped to bits by a lunatic.

 

“Mimi could you please restrain your sister before she chops down that innocent tree?  Or that, taking her broadsword away from her works too.  Okay so, I know you guys probably really want to chase after, and probably brutally murder knowing at least two of you, that guy that was throwing rocks at us earlier, but as it turns out he is both pretty important and pretty fragile, so-Lena I will throw you into the TARDIS if I have to- so I would appreciate it if you didn’t kill him.  You don’t have to be on good terms with him, that’s completely fine, just don’t let him die.”

 

“If he’s so important then tell us who it is,” Sari, easily the tallest and oddest looking person here, gestured to Ghost with her warhammer.

 

“Well, you know how I sometimes tell you guys about the voice in my head that made me do stuff, Jordan?  Well, that’s him, or at least someone very similar to him.”

 

“FOR THE LAST TIME I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THIS JORDAN DUDE IS!!!  I AM JOHNNY GHO- _wwooh,_ ” he fell out of the tree mid-rant, and Lena immediately charged in for the attack.  Ghost pulled out his handgun and, right as he shot, Lena turned to blue mist and disappeared, leaving the bullet to find it’s home in Asylum’s chest.


	2. Ghost's Near-Death Count

Before either of them could even react, Sari pinned Ghost up against the tree, off the ground, with the handle of her war-hammer, knocking the gun out of his hand.  “If he didn’t ask so politely for you not to die you’d be troll food _runt_ ” she seethed.  Before he could defend his (lack of) height, Asylum got over his shock.

“Sari, Sari it’s okay I’m fine!  Just like an arrow wound, nothing a potion can’t fix!”  Asylum drank a potion and the bullet wound closed up in a yellow glow, though the tear and stain in his clothing was still there.  “See!  Nothing to worry about!  Nothing to kill over haha.  Kajsa no, give that thing to me, it’s dangerous.”  Kajsa had picked up the gun out of curiosity, and handed it to Asylum, who put it in his magic satchel.  Sari let Ghost down from the tree, but continued to glare at him, which was extremely intimidating given she was a lot taller than him and wielded a war-hammer almost his size, and he currently had no weapon to defend himself with.

“Give me my gun back!”

“You just shot me!  You think I’m going to just _give it back_?”

“Well how am I supposed to defend myself?!”

“If you weren’t so hostile in the first place you wouldn’t _need_ to defend yourself!”  They stared each other down for a few seconds, “knowing you, if I turned my back for a second you’d be off doing something stupid.  I think I have just the place to put you while I do things.”  Asylum summoned a Golden Saint, and said to her “Put this guy in the dungeon area, I don’t want him running off before I get back.”

“ **WHAT.** ”  Ghost squawked in outrage.

“Yes my liege.”  The Golden Saint grabbed both of Ghost’s arms so he couldn’t fight as she dragged him all the way to New Sheoth castle.  He was shouting and twisting, trying with all his might to try and escape, but it was all in vain, because he has the muscle build of an atrophying dandelion, especially compared to a daedra.

Once Ghost’s shouting couldn't be heard anymore, Sari turned to Asylum, “now that _that_ problem is solved, I believe we can get back to what we were doing?”  Asylum clapped his hands and they were all back on the ship, Lena included.  “Asylum Kyte Weaver, my life with you has got to be the craziest life that has ever been lived, and I wouldn't have it any other way.”  She slipped the carved ebony ring onto his finger, picked him up and kissed him on the lips.  Everyone around them cheered and clapped, Lena swung her sword at the main mast, cutting a rope and unfurling the main sail, releasing colorful paper scraps and fake snow.  Asylum still holds to it that this is the best day of his life.

* * *

When Asylum started to shape his realm to his liking, one of the first things he did was get rid of the torture devices in the dungeon of New Sheoth Castle, and replaced them with things like tables, which were much more practical.  Currently, one of these tables had all of the items, save clothes, that the guards had found on Ghost.  This included: 2 more handguns with ammunition, a multi-tool, a carved knife that had some sort of unknown property to it, a packet of gum, an older smartphone, a walkie talkie, throwing stars, a ramen noodle flavor packet(chicken), a hand notebook with several half-used pencils, and a grenade.  And of course Ghost was the only one in the entire place that knew what any of it is, minus the knife.  He doesn't know how it got there.

“Hey!  Leave my guns alone!”  Ghost banged his hands on the iron bars of his cell as Mimi was forcing apart one of the handguns with an iron dagger she found.  She turned her head towards Ghost, stuck out her tongue at him, and went back to work.  “What are you, mute?”

“Watch it Jordy, you've got consequences now,”  Asylum hopped down the staircase into the room, cutting Mimi off before she could retort, “she just wants to figure out how that thing fires such a small thing so fast.  You wouldn't _believe_ how uncomfortable it was to get that little piece of metal out of my rib cage.”

“How do none of you know what a bullet is?  What a gun is?  It's like this is actually medieval times and not some weird aesthet-wait.  No.  NO.  I REFUSE TO BE STUCK SO FAR BACK IN TIME,” he banged his hands on the bars some more, “I REFUSE I REFUSE.”

Somehow you were less annoying when you were a voice in my head.”  Asylum sighed and walked over next to Mimi.  “Find out anything useful?”  Mimi shook her head.

“Why do you keep saying stuff like that!  I've never been here before in my _life_!  My name is _not_ Jordan!  Don't ignore me!”

“If only I could, if only I could.  Wait, I can.”  He cast a spell and the room went silent, except for the sound of a metal dagger scraping against the casing of a gun.  “Try all you want but nothing you say or do will produce sound until the spells wear off.  It’s not like you’re going to be going anywhere for a bit”  Ghost was still talking, but nobody could hear him.

"Asylum?"  Mimi said softly but clearly.

"Yeah?  What's up?"

“I'm kinda concerned for him.” 

“Why’s that?”

“Well, even though you said that he’s Jordan, he keeps insisting his name is Johnny Ghost.  And, by your account of him, he certainly talked a lot but he wasn't nearly as rude as he was before you came in.”

“ _Really_ now?  What did he say?”

“Several variations on ‘brutish barbarian’ and five insults to my intelligence, including saying that being blonde is fitting for me, whatever he meant by that.”

“That’s….odd.  Doesn’t sound like the sort of insults he usually throws around.  He was never _that_ bad.”  Asylum grabbed the notebook from the table and leafed through it, finding out three things.  One: Asylum can’t read as well as he likes to claim he does.  Two: this dude only writes about the paranormal in really obnoxious handwriting.  Three: he may have been wrong about the Jordan thing.  Asylum came to this conclusion mainly due to the fact that Jordan is completely awful at lying and would not have this kind of dedication to any lie.  He would really hate to admit he was wrong, but everyone makes mistakes sometimes, even gods.  At least, that’s what he kept reminding himself.

Ghost had a smug look on his face as Asylum walked over, pleased that he was proven right by whatever was read in his notebook but upset that someone had gone through his notebook.  Asylum did his best to ignore it, “look.  I don’t know how you got here, but in order to get you back to whatever plane of Oblivion you came from I have to know how you were able to get here, so you’re going to help me with that, starting tomorrow.”  Ghost looked absolutely outraged, but had no way of expressing such other than wildly gesticulating and the fact that his face was actually turning red.  “Sorry dude you have to wait until the spells wear off, I don’t know how to undo them.  But what I can do is get you out of there and into an actual bedroom, where you’ll get good sleep and have plenty of running energy.”  Asylum unlocked and opened the cell door, Ghost immediately darted out and grabbed at the pulled-apart gun in Mimi’s hands, only to be met with a swift punch in the stomach that left him on the ground.  Asylum was thinking that he better put extra guards on the guest bedroom tonight.

Ghost quickly scrambled up from the cold stone floor, glared at Mimi (to which Mimi glared back) and went over to the table to collect his stuff.  He kept the notebook and a pencil in his jacket pocket instead of in his bag because he will not be rendered completely silent, no matter how much anyone else wants it.  He left the knife there.  Ghost was about to walk out of the room when Asylum stopped him.

“Don’t you want to know where you’re going?”  Ghost scribbled something in his notebook, tore the page out, and shoved in Asylum’s face.  ‘ _I can do this by myself_ ’, the note read.  While Asylum was slowly reading the note, Ghost took off, and since the muffle spell was still active, nobody in the room noticed.

As he turned and booked it down the hall in an attempt to get out of this madhouse, the spells wore off.  He was too far for anyone from the dungeon to notice the sound of his sneakers hitting the stone floors, but Kajsa happened to be wandering around and, bless, thought Ghost was playing a game of chase and took off after him.  The castle has a latent defense mechanism where it makes itself practically impossible to navigate to outsiders, which certainly didn’t help Ghost escape the baby troll catching up to him.

By the time Asylum had caught on and was also running into the hall to catch up, the chase was over.  Kajsa was sitting on Ghost’s chest and looking mighty proud of himself.  Ghost was trying to push him off, but that was about 90 pounds of proud baby troll it wasn’t going _anywhere_.  Asylum laughed.

“Good boy Kajsa!”  Asylum ran up and rubbed Kajsa’s head, to the delight of the troll.

“Get your...weird dog OFF ME.”  Ghost demanded, still trying, and failing, to push Kajsa off.

“HEY.  His name is Kajsa and I love him like a son, or something.  Also do you not know what trolls are?”

“What _what_ are?”

“ _Wow_ you really aren’t from around here are you?  Okay Kajsa, he can get up now.”  Kajsa got up and stood right next to Asylum, coming to about the height of his waist.  Ghost got to his feet as well, trying to regain whatever dignity he thought he had left by brushing off his jacket.  “Hey, why don’t youuuuu go pick out a book to read tonight while I go get our guest to his room?”  Kajsa slapped the ground in excitement and ran off at his awkward gait to go find a book for Asylum to read to him.  “Alright, seems like tomorrow is also going to be an informational expedition for you as well, come on, the room’s this way.”  Asylum grabbed Ghost’s jacket sleeve and pulled him along so he doesn’t try to escape again.

“Trolls, people in metal armor, just what kind of place _is_ this???”  Ghost mumbled to himself, unaware that a little troll and armor clad twins were just the beginning of the madness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [pretends to take a drag of a candy cigarette] formatting is hell, kid


	3. In Which Two Men Exasperatedly Discuss Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 8 kudos?? Over 50 reads??? I'm gonna explode y'all.
> 
> Also shoutout to @slenderboobs on Tumblr. She's basically co-authoring this with me, but doesn't have an account here so I can't put her as an Official Co-Author

“I won't sleep, you know.”  Ghost’s shoes scuffed and scraped on the floor as he was being dragged to the guest bedroom by his jacket hood, arms crossed angrily.

“Well, in that case I’ll just stay right outside the door the whole night so you don't get lonely.”  Asylum huffed, confident that Ghost was just being a brat.  Not that he didn't plan on holding up his promise, that part was true no matter how silly it sounded.  He even had extra guards stationed outside in case Ghost tries to go through a window for whatever reason.  The last thing he wanted to do was trust a guy that was basically Jordan but with less of a filter.  Jordan with a gun.

“I mean it.  I won't get a wink of sleep.  Haven't for at least a week.”  Ghost said smugly, as if it were something to be proud of, which is isn't.  Asylum was confused, but he didn't show it.

“Well then, today's your lucky day isn't it.”

“So what's your plan of action if I don't fall asleep, _Your Infinite Grace_?”  Ghost knows that whatever this guy has planned to get him to sleep just won't work.

“Well, I could just take Sari’s advice and let her knock you out with her war-hammer.”

“Why does she hate me so much!  What have I even done to her!”  Asylum stopped in his tracks and turned to Ghost with a shocked and dumbfounded look on his face.

“ _What have you done?_  What haven't you done!  You crashed our wedding!”  Asylum was shaking Ghost’s shoulders for emphasis now, “you shot me with a thing none of us have ever seen before!  You've done nothing but spout insults since you've been here!  She has every right to be distrusting of you!”

“Okay okay, leave go already.”  Ghost squirmed out of Asylum’s grasp and glared some more, unwilling to admit that Asylum was right.  There was a silence for a while.

“Uh, there’s a washbasin in the room if you want to, you know, get all the grape residue off your face.”

“ _That would be nice_.”

“Room’s right here,” Asylum pointed to the door across from them, “knock yourself out.  Not, literally.  I mean, you can if you want, I won’t stop you.”  Ghost just rolled his eyes and walked in, closing the big wooden door with a slam that echoed through the stone hallway.  “Talk about rude…” Asylum mumbled to himself.  “Are you going to want a change of clothes too?  I’m sure I have some that’ll fit you around somewhere.”  He yelled through the door.

“What?  No, I’m fine!” came the somewhat muffled response.

“Have fun sleeping in juice clothes then, you grumpy old man.”  Asylum said, not loud enough to where Ghost could hear it through the wooden door, but enough that he was satisfied with his sass.  He motioned for two guards to come over, “I’ll be back in a bit, but make sure he doesn’t get out until then.”  The guards nodded and took their positions on either side of the guest room door.  Asylum walked off to his own room, because Kajsa never sleeps without his bedtime story.

* * *

When Asylum was done reading Kajsa to sleep, he returned to the guest room to see how things were going, as he assumed they weren’t going the way he wanted them to.  That was the correct assumption, because as he approached the door, a stick shot out from under the door and poked at one of the guards’ boots.  If Ghost had aimed to get a reaction from the guard, he had failed in that respect.  Asylum stepped on the stick and heard a _snap_ come from the other side of the door as Ghost tried to get it back.

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”  Asylum waved the guards off, they were no longer needed, plus he didn’t want anyone snooping in on whatever conversation was about to ensue.

“I told you.  I don’t sleep.”

“Like hell you don’t.”

“Why don’t we just go out and look for whatever the heck it is that’ll get me home already.”

“Oh _of course_!  The best time to go out adventuring in the dangerous wilds is _11 at night_ when we _don’t even know what we’re looking for_.”  There was a pause, as if Ghost was considering his next words.

“...this is homophobia.”

Asylum scoffed, “yeah, that and getting you clean clothes apparently.”

“Do I _look_ like the type to have clean clothes.  Who do you think I am.”

“I was hoping you would at least be a semi-functional human being but apparently my hopes were too high, even then.”

“It’s the depression Susan.”

“I have my issues too but if I let up even just a little bit Satan McFourarms would’ve taken the whole of Cyrodil, I think the least you can do is a bit of laundry every other week.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of _course_ you don’t.  Just get some sleep already.”

“I have ADHD!  It’s not that simple!”

“Now it’s my turn to not know what you’re talking about!”

“Can’t we just go already.”  Ghost jiggled the doorknob, knowing it was locked.

“You aren’t leaving that room until you get some sleep!”

“I’ve had plenty of sleepless nights, this is no different.  It won’t kill me.”

“Actually, I think it might.”

“All the better.”  At that, Asylum’s eyes widened.  He had met plenty of odd people in his time, but none with such blatant disregard for their own life.  Not since...the Gray Prince, back at the Arena.  He tried to put the thought out of his mind as quickly as it came.

“Nah buddy, you’re staying alive and you’re going to sleep.”

“What?  Why?”  Crap, Asylum can’t have random people knowing he’s concerned!  Even if it was just a little bit!  He has to think of a coverup, and quick!

“Can’t make you pay if you’re dead!”

“ _Pay???_  For _what???_ ”

“ _OH YOU KNOW EXACTLY ‘WHAT’._ ”  Ghost sat down with a huff, back pressed against the door because he did, in fact, know exactly what Asylum was talking about but still didn’t think he’s deserving of being treated this way.

“This is-”

“If you say ‘this is homophobia’ again I’m leaving you here alone.”

“...I was _about_ to say that this has to be the worst plan to try and get me to sleep that I have ever been subjected to.”

“What I heard you say was that there are _better_ ways to try and get you to sleep.  And that there are ways that actually _work_.”

“I should really just shut up sometimes.”

“So how _do_ you get to sleep then?”

“Forget I said anything.”

“Not until you tell me.”

“It’s not like you’ll be able to help.”

“Try me.”

“No.”

“Fine then, I’ll guess.  Is it…..cuddling with your boyfriend?”  Ghost stayed silent.  “OH MY _GODS_.  I’M RIGHT AREN’T I.  YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND AND YOU FALL ASLEEP CUDDLING WITH HIM.”

“SHUT UP!!!”  Ghost was getting flustered, not that Asylum could see it through the big wooden door.

“THAT IS THE CUTEST THING.  Oh don’t worry bud your distant-and-aloof guy facade is safe with me but _this info was definitely unexpected_.”

“SHUT UP!!!!” Ghost hit the door repeatedly with the back of his head.  Asylum started laughing, which made Ghost start banging his head harder against the door, until suddenly he stopped.  Asylum screwdrivered the door after a few minutes and peeked in to see Ghost, fully unconscious on the floor.  He put his hand in front of Ghost’s face to check that he was still breathing, which he was, then took the sheet from the bed and threw it over Ghost, and locked the door on his way out.  At least he was asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [a voice comes over the intercom] HAHAHAHA HE'S GAY


	4. Potato batteries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF sorry this has taken so long, I haven't had steady access to a computer and, y'know, school and stuff. I'll try to have a more regular update schedule in the future
> 
> Also ALMOST A HUNDRED READS???? Y'ALL'RE TOO KIND

It is now roughly five in the morning, and most people in the castle, that weren’t the inhuman guards, were still asleep.  This excluded Asylum, who has been up basically all night (save for an hour nap) wondering exactly _how_ a portal to his realm opened up without him knowing, and why it spit out a guy that apparently _just so happens_ to, of all people, sound _exactly_ like Jordan.  He went through all the books he had on the subject, which, admittedly, was not a large collection.  He went and visited the spell seller down in the city, Asylum wasn’t sure what he was expecting but he thought he might as well check in.  He even visited that creepy lady in the cave that makes the flesh creatures.  Nothing, _nothing_ , **nothing**.  The question may have just driven him mad if he hadn’t already officially Lost It™.

Asylum made his was back to his and Sari’s room, and flopped down on the free side of the bed, burying his face in the pillow, and groaned.  Sari gently kicked him in the leg for waking her up, prompting a muffled apology from him.

“You should go check in on him, if you’re so bent out of shape.”  Sari wiggled around to look at Asylum, face partially obscured by the blankets.

“‘m not _worried_.” came the muffled response.

Sari chuckled softly.  “You’re so bad at lying.  Both of us know you care at least a little bit about him, bad attitude about it aside.”  Asylum huffed at being called out like this.  “Well, if you won’t check on him, maybe I will.”  Sari went to get up from the bed, and Asylum stretched his arm out toward her in much-expected protest.

“I’ll do it, you shouldn’t have to deal with him more than you have to.”

Sari smiled, “I knew you were up to it,” and got comfortable in the bed again.

Asylum kissed her on the cheek, “you really know how to pull my strings don’t you?”

“Like a marionette.”

* * *

Asylum waved off the guards as he approached the guest room for the second time in twenty four hours.  He could just _barely_ hear Ghost talking, so he assumed it was alright to just enter without knocking (an awful thing to do).  Upon opening the door, he found Ghost walking around the room, taking a video with his phone.  As soon as he had realized the door was open, Ghost quickly shoved the phone in his jacket pocket, as if he were doing something wrong.  This did nothing to make what he was doing less suspicious and/or confusing to Asylum, who had never seen anything remotely similar to a phone, in shape or functionality, in his life.

“...good morning?”

“ _Good morning??_  It’s nearly eight at night!!”

“I don’t...no it’s not?  It’s almost six in the morning?”

“Well that’s what my phone says!  And the windows are so _heavily stained_ I can’t tell if it’s night or day out!”

“Well, I guess it’s your fault for relying on whatever a ‘phone’ is to tell the time.”  Ghost was almost stunned.  He really wasn’t prepared for being trapped in a place where the people don’t know about guns or phones.  Next he guessed that they don’t have indoor plumbing either.

“Oh, so it’s _my_ fault for getting locked up in a room and using technology from where I’m from, is that it?”

“ _You know what, yes it is._ Your stinky attitude is _exactly_ what landed you in this particular situation.”  Ghost opened his mouth, presumably to yell something, but Asylum cut him off, “I was _thinking_ it would be _nice_ to get an _early start_ on getting you out of here.  We’re getting breakfast, then we’re out.”

“I’m not eating.”  At this point, Ghost’s resistance to doing what was asked of him was purely preformative.  He hadn’t eaten in roughly three days, he knows he has to eventually.

“You said the same thing about sleeping.  Let’s go.”  Asylum thought he would have to drag Ghost down the hall again, but was surprised when Ghost actually willingly walked out the door, albeit looking like a reluctant child in doing so, with his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his hood far over his head.  Maybe getting a little sleep helped his bad attitude, imagine that.  Ghost started to walk the wrong way down the hall, so Asylum gently tugged his sleeve to turn him around so he was walking the right way to the kitchen.

Now, in his haste, Ghost had forgotten to turn off his phone or the recording feature, so effectively all of this was caught on grainy low-quality phone camera film, or, at least the audio was recorded.  This was not necessarily bad, as what Ghost was currently experiencing was far outside his definition of normal, so of course he _had_ to record it.  Ghost pulled his phone from his pocket and turned off the camera, he needed to save battery and space on his phone, both of which were pretty limited.  Speaking of, his phone battery was currently at 53%, he needed to get it charged and soon, and he highly doubts that there’s a socket he can just plug his phone charger in to here.

“Hey do potatoes grow here?”

“I...what?”  Asylum’s eyes scrunched up in confusion at this very out of place question.

“Actually, I’d rather not ruin the cable by pulling it apart to pull charge from a potato.  Do you know some sort of weird lightning magic or whatever?”

“Did you _not_ hear my first ‘what?’?”  Asylum started to slow down his pace, as if that would make understanding the questions better.

“I need to charge my phone!”

“What even _is_ a _‘phone’_?”

“It’s something that I need to charge!  Now, do you or do you not know lightning magic?”

“I sure as heck won’t do _anything_ you ask until you tell me why I should!”

“Fine.  A phone is something I need charged or else bad things happen.  Now _can you charge it??_ ”

“That answered exactly zero of my questions, congratulations.”

“Well you aren’t answering mine!”

“Yeah I suppose that’s fair.”  Asylum picked up his pace again, not wanting a fight this early in the morning.  Not that anything bad would happen, for him at least, it was just something he didn’t want to deal with.

“Don’t think you can just walk away from me!”  Ghost also started walking faster to keep up with Asylum.

“Don’t tempt me.”  Asylum started going even faster, the sooner he got to the kitchen the sooner he would stop being pestered to cast lightning magic for whatever reason.  Ghost, of course, also picked up his pace, determined to not have his phone battery die on him just because he’s in a foreign dimension that is very _very_ far in the past.

Asylum opened the door with such force that it slammed against the wall, producing a loud _bang_ that echoed off the stone of the hallways.  Ghost was still following behind him, still trying in vain to get Asylum to charge his phone.  Asylum, however, was a professional at ignoring people, and instead was rifling through the cupboards to find something he deemed necessary.

“I swear you ignore me so much you might actually be deaf!  Maybe you just read lips and you can’t tell people are talking when you aren’t looking at them!  Mayb- **what is this.** ”  Asylum had shoved a bunch of grapes in front of Ghost’s face mid-sentence.

“What, next you’re going to tell me you don’t eat breakfast either?”

“Well I sure don’t want anything _you_ offer me.”

“Starve then.”  Asylum put the grapes on the counter next to Ghost and turned his back to go unlock the opposite door which led outside.  Sure enough, as soon as Ghost thought he wasn’t looking, he took the grapes and ate a few, both feeling better and fulfilling Asylum’s expectations.  Ghost may be more bitter and ready to insult people, but he was still pretty similar to Jordan if Asylum knew anything about either of them, so he had assumed that by implying he shouldn’t do something, Ghost was going to do it.  Nothing if not predictable.  “Come on princess, the sun won’t wait for ya.”


	5. Ghost has a breakdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who has a computer now and can upload unconstrained by school? this guy
> 
> also shoutout to @randomeverything1 on Tumblr for helping me with how people converse, for I am less than an expert in that field

“So you have  _ no idea _ how to get me back at all.”  Ghost had his phone ready to film as he walked beside Asylum on the path that lead out of New Sheoth, just in case something extraordinarily weird decided to happen.

“Not really.  All I’ve got at this point is hoping to stumble across a portal back, since by your description you didn’t land in the usual spot where portals drop people.”  Asylum kinda hated the fact that it was impossible to know at least most of the things that go on in what is supposed to be  _ his realm _ , but he also guessed things would get very boring very quick if he knew everything.

“ _ The usual place portals drop people??? _ ”  Asylum was grateful that Ghost didn’t decided to latch onto the fact he didn’t know what he was doing, he hated admitting stuff like that.

“Oh yeah, that place is  _ awful _ , I’m kinda surprised I survived when I had to go through that place, back when I was mortal and stuff.  Really drab too, all foggy and no color to anything except a few people’s clothing.”  Asylum made a face of disgust to help prove his point.

“Sounds like a barrel of laughs.”

“Oh it is.  If by that you mean the laughs of the manic.”   _ Woosh _ , watch that sarcasm fly right over Asylum’s head.  Ghost just gave him a weird look.

“...no, that’s  _ not _ what I meant.”

“Oh.  Whoops.”  Asylum laughed in spite of himself.  Suddenly, he halted and stuck his arm out in front of Ghost to stop him as well, which of course he ran into.

“Hey!  What was that for!”  Ghost shoved Asylum’s arm down.

“Something’s hostile.”  Asylum was looking around, searching for what he had heard shuffle around.

“Of course something’s  _ hostile _ !  You just shoved into me!”

“Shut  _ up _ !”  Asylum hissed, making Ghost blink in surprise.  Before he could say anything in retaliation, a gnarl shambled up onto the path in front of them and advanced as fast as it could (which was not very fast).  Ghost barely had time to start recording on his phone before Asylum was roasting it with his fire magic, which killed it in record time.  Ghost pointing what Asylum only knew to be a weird slate with a light that runs on lightning at him did  _ not _ make him feel comfortable, for all he knew it was going to shoot him or something.

“Hey!”  Asylum gestured to the phone with his fire spells still crackling in his hands, “don’t point that thing at me!”

“Don’t point your magic hands at  _ me _ !”  Asylum unequipped his fire spells because fear of fire is valid he wasn’t going to argue that.

“Now it's your turn.”

“No!”

“What is it even doing? Why is it glowing like that?  Is it some sort of weapon?”

“It's recording you moron, it isn't going to shoot out ice or whatever the heck you thought was going to happen.”

“Oh I'm  _ sorry _ , Mr. I Fell On My Ass In Surprise Because Of A Gnarl.”  Asylum rolled his eyes and turned to continue down the path, thinking that Ghost would follow, as he was the only shot the spatially, and temporally, displaced salt pile had at getting back home.  Ghost, however, did not follow as Asylum had hoped, and instead went off the path towards where the tree-monster had came from, hoping to see more and get them on camera.  Asylum only noticed Ghost wasn’t following him when he heard a shrill shriek, followed by gunshots, and immediately ran over to the impossibly large tree where the startling sounds aforementioned came from.  Practically vaulting down the entire hill, Asylum was just in time to grab Ghost’s hoodie to keep him from going into the cave underneath the tree, which would most certainly be filled with many more nasties than the one other gnarl that Ghost had found and killed at the base of the tree.

“You’re going to get your twink ass handed to you if you go in there!  What were you thinking!”  Asylum yelled angrily, yanking Ghost back up towards the path by his hood.

“Like I was supposed to know!  It’s like I’m not from around here or something!”  Ghost spat back bitterly as soon as he regained his footing after being thrown up a hill few feet by a guy that was just as short as he was.

“Whatever, just stick close to me in case something more dangerous than a bush with legs decides to attack.”  The tension in the air could be cut with a knife as they continued to walk along in angry silence, Ghost fiddling with his phone and turning the recording off, and Asylum always keeping him in sight, watching him like a hawk so he doesn’t run off again.

“Do you know what the deal is with these giant mushrooms everywhere?”  Ghost broke the silence as they walked by one of said mushrooms.

“Nope.”

“Seriously?”

“Completely serious.  Those things are older than I am, I bet.”

“Is  _ anything _ normal in this place?”

“Is anything ‘normal’ where  _ you _ came from?”

“Yes, yes things  _ are _ normal back home!  At least, they better be.”

“Really?  Because you have weird clothes and even weirder things you carry with you compared to, well,” Asylum vaguely gestured around, “this place.  Or anywhere I traveled.  Unless a huge chunk of time has passed and I missed it, which I don’t think is very possible.”

“Oh  _ I’m _ the weird one, am I???  This place has little to no technology and magic and  _ actual literal orcs _ !!  It’s like this place is right out of a fairy tale or something!”

“Watch it.  That’s my wife you’re talking about.”

“ _ DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE YOU DON'T KNOW STUFF ABOUT YOUR OWN DAMN DIMENSION?? _ ”

“ _ DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE THIS IS THE REALM OF MADNESS THAT'S THE  _ **_POINT_ ** _?? _ ”  The two men glared angrily at one another. Ghost then suddenly yelled out in frustration and kicked the ground beneath him, making the dirt and small rocks fly.   Asylum simply rolled his eyes at the childish behavior Ghost was showing. Did this man not know how to control his emotions at all?  Then again, he himself was thinking of simply sleeping the guy for that mouth of his, so he doesn't have that much room to talk.  After a few more kicks and yells, the paranormal investigator began stomping in a random direction and mumbling to himself.

"And where do you think you're going?!" Asylum called out to him.

"If you won't help me get out of this horrible dimension and go back home, then I'll do it  _ myself _ ! I don't need your help! I don't need anyone's help! Not ever!"

"Fine by me! I'm not your  _ mother _ ! I'm not your  _ caretaker _ ! Why do  _ I _ care if you something stupid?! I don't!"  Asylum watched Ghost storm off until he could no longer see that infuriating grey hood bobbing up and down as Ghost exaggerated his footsteps, as if that would do something somehow.  He sat down with his back up to a bush, and tried to calm down.  He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, he heard from someone somewhere at sometime that it was supposed to help with anger.  He was the  _ mad _ god, not the  _ angry _ god, after all.  Asylum chuckled at his own joke.

After sitting in the dirt for roughly ten minutes, laughing at his own jokes like a major dork, he calmed down enough to remember that he did, in fact, care about Ghost’s wellbeing enough to not let him die horribly in what Asylum could only guess is an incredibly foreign land to him.  Plus, there’s at least one person that cares about the guy, he’d rather not have that heartbreak weighing on his conscience, regardless of if he understood it or if he saw it or not.  Asylum slowly got to his feet, which took a lot more effort than he would ever, in his immortal life admit, and walked casually over to where the large child of a man stomped his way into the wilderness.  He left tracks alright, and they were headed right for the gloomy Dementia half of the realm.  Oh what joy.


	6. wlw/mlm solidarity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *uploads chapter without editing it* it's not supposed to make sense

Ghost had absolutely no idea where he was.  Everything was muted and almost grayscaled, and it was so foggy he had to use the flashlight on his phone to see more than two feet in front of his face, as his regular flashlight was nowhere to be found.  It was like he wasn’t even in the same place at all.  Using the flashlight on his phone made the battery drop, which decidedly did  _ not _ help his anxiety, but he needed it if he was to avoid pitfall traps or whatever else this crazy dimension he landed himself in had in store for him.

His phone flashed with a notification, 5% battery.  He sighed and sat up against up a tree, turning off the flashlight.  He held his head in his hands, he had no idea how he was going to get back home, back to the one he loved, not when he fought with who was probably the only guy who had even the slightest clue about how to get him back.  Hell, he was almost in tears because of frustration when he heard some sort of string instrument playing softly from...above him?  Maybe the trees played music here, he didn’t feel like questioning it.  The melody was simple but, calm and comforting, somehow.  It was only when someone started whistling along to the tune did Ghost think to look up to find Asylum, playing a lute in the upper branches of the tree and pretending not to pay attention.

“Can’t you see I’m busy being depressed?  Go play on some other street corner.”  Ghost got up and started to walk away.

“Okay first off I’m not blind, and second I’m not just going to leave you  _ alone _ .”  Ghost just squinted at Asylum, covering up his confusion by feigning disdain.  Not that he didn’t begrudge his...captor, he guessed was the best way to put it, but confusion definitely reigned at the moment.  “What?  I don’t want to deal with another dead body is all.”  Asylum defended himself in face of Ghost’s judgemental glare, unwilling to admit that he actually cared about Ghost’s wellbeing.

“Whatever.  Just get me back home already.”  Ghost huffed and turned away.

“You  _ do _ know it’s not that simple, right?”

“It’s gotta be that simple!  You can make people sail through the air with just a wave of your hand!  Sending me back home can’t be  _ that _ hard!”

“Well, I could just throw you out anywhere, that’s the easy part,” Ghost looked frightened for a split second, but Asylum didn’t catch it, “but I want you to get back to where you belong.  Don’t want anyone else to have to deal with you if they aren’t supposed to.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean???”

“Oh you know  _ exactly _ what it’s supposed to mean.  Come on, you almost wasted the whole day being depressed.”  Asylum started to walk away, still watching Ghost to make sure he follows.

“I did not!  It’s like, noon.”  Ghost denied vehemently, catching up with the purposefully irritating redguard.

“Ah, around here it’s impossible to tell the time of day, the mist actually glows faintly so it always just seems like a very foggy midday.”

“WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THIS PLACE???”

“If only I could say, if only.”

“Do you know  _ anything _ ???”  Instead of answering, Asylum summoned a bunch of grapes, and started eating them.  “Don’t think that you can just dodge my question by e-”

“Shhhh.  Grapes.”  Asylum held eye contact with Ghost as he slowly ate a grape to establish dominance.  Before Ghost could respond in confusion, his vision was obscured by butterflies and he was back in the guest room at the castle.  He was quite tired of being whisked around like this when he couldn’t even speak against it, so he shouted and kicked the nightstand, then falling to the floor in pain because his shoes did not exactly absorb shock.  Kicking the nightstand did, however, make a potato fall down to the floor, right in front of his face.  His confusion overtook the pain of a stubbed toe, making Ghost get up to a sitting position and pick up the root.  He remembered asking for one earlier, but he really didn’t expect to actually get one.  The implication of someone caring enough about him to do such an odd request was mind-boggling to him, but considering this place didn’t seem to run on logic he just shook it off as just another crazy thing, and pulled out his phone charger from his bag and started separating the wires, he’d rather be caught dead than with a dead phone.

* * *

 

Lena shuffled the cards in the deck, and dealt a hand to everyone at the table, which consisted of Asylum, Mimi, and Sari.  It was almost a tradition they had, playing cards with each other in the dead of night every week.  All of them forget when the tradition really started, but it’s Lena’s personal belief that it began when Asylum became a vampire for that short time and couldn’t fall asleep at night no matter how hard he tried, and the game kinda stuck with them even after he was cured.

“So, any cute girls lately?”  Lena half jokingly asked Mimi as she pushed some coins into the middle of the table.

“Oh  _ ha ha _ ,” Mimi laid a card down on the table, “I actually saw someone at the alchemist’s, I think she was a new apprentice.”

“Oooo what’d she look like?”  Asylum put a single coin in the pool to add to what Lena had put there.

“I bet she has hazel eyes, Mimi’s a sucker for those.”  Sari grinned and waved her hand, signaling she skips her turn.

“Guys please.”  Mimi implored as Lena laid two cards on the table.  The sound of a door slowly creaking open caught everyone’s attention, and they all looked towards the door where they saw Ghost, trying to sneak out.

“You got the door open!  Impressive!”  Asylum called out to Ghost, referring to the fact that he  _ thought _ the guest room door was locked.

“Come on, play cards with us!  We just started, and you obviously aren’t tired!”  Lena practically shouted across the room.

“Actually I think I am now, goodnight.”  Ghost turned to go back through the door, but it slammed shut, and no matter how much Ghost jiggled the handle, it won’t open.  Locked by some mysterious force.

“Come on now, we aren’t  _ that _ bad of company you curmudgeon.”

“As much as I would love to object, there really isn’t an option here for me is there.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it, no.”

“Thanks.”  Ghost made a big huffy show of dragging  _ such _ a  _ heavy chair _ over to the table to join them, then dropping himself in the chair, which must’ve hurt considering it’s a wooden chair, but he didn’t show any signs of pain, so it wasn’t addressed, although Sari rolled her eyes.

“Do you know how to play?”  Sari asked him, polite as always.

“I think I’d rather watch.”

“If you say so.  Who’s turn is it now anyways?”

“I think it’s Mimi’s.”  Asylum said, reorganizing the cards he has in his hand.

“Right.  Gimme another card Lena.”  Mimi tapped twice on the table and Lena slid her a face-down card.

“Aren’t you supposed to say ‘hit me’ if you want a card?”  Ghost interjected, to which Asylum only scoffed.

“Yeah, if you wanna get  _ decked _ .”  And all the girls at the table groaned, making an extremely smug smile spread across the offender’s face.

“That’s it.  Next one to make a bad joke gets the sword.”  Lena looked furious, stony face in place of her usual joyful attentiveness.

“Why did you  _ marry _ this guy Sar?”  Mimi put her head on the table and covered it with her arms, careful to not let anyone see her cards.  Sari, however, was covering her smile with the fan of cards in her hand, but that didn’t stop Asylum from noticing that someone enjoyed his joke.  He scooted closer to her and swung sideways in his chair, legs over one arm of the chair and head leaning on the other arm that was closer to Sari.  He arched his neck back as far as he could and looked at her.

“It’s because she ~ _ loves me _ ~, right  _ ma halesta _ ?”  Sari blushed at the pet name he used for her.

“That just cost you.  Double the kisses Asyboy.”

“A price I’m more than happy to pay.”  Ghost looked like he was about to explode and turned away, pulling his hood down over his head so that it was covering most of his face.  Both of the twins at least chuckled at his behavior.

“You guys are disgusting.”  He said with as much disdain he could muster using his voice.

“Oh please you just wish your boyfriend was here so you can try to one up Asylum.”  Mimi interjected, before Asylum could insult Ghost back.  Ghost glared at Mimi, who just smirked back.

“I didn’t say anything about my boyfriend yet.”

“Gay cant, my friend.  No way you speak like that and are also heterosexual.”

“Plus you just confirmed you have a boyfriend, meaning you at least experience sga to some extent.”  Lena added, smirking as Ghost huffed and turned back away from everyone, pulling the strings on his hoodie so tight that his face practically disappeared.

“So who’s the lucky guy huh?  Also I’m sitting here now, you get no choice.”  Asylum had, while talking, gotten up and sat down on Sari’s lap, to which there was no objection.  The top of his head only came up to around her shoulder, even with the height boost.  Sari wrapped her arms around his chest and looked at her cards over his head.

“Like I’m going to tell  _ you _ .”  Ghost spat, still facing away from everyone.

“Oh come ooonnnn.”  Mimi egged him on.  Ghost huffed and said nothing.

“Not even one thing about him?”  Sari rested her chin on the top of Asylum’s head.  Ghost looked over to her with disdain on his face.  Seeing them being so mushy towards each other really irritated him, he didn’t know why.

“...fine, but  **only** one thing.  He’s real tall, like you are.”  He resignedly told his harassers.  Asylum scoffed.

“The only person taller than Sari is Mehrunes Dagon himself.”

“No really.  He’s super tall and he's got these super pretty bright eyes like he’s shining a damn flashlight all the time, and he’s got this magical hair that’s always infuriatingly well behaved, and this perfect stubble that he never shaves or grows out for some reason, and he seems to know how to take care of me and just make me feel better and ground me, and he’s so smart sometimes even when he’s not, and he’s just so stupidly handsome and nice and good and he’s been there with me through everything and I don’t know what I’d do without him and even if he is a little irritating sometimes I really miss him."  Everyone was silent, shocked that he has talked for so long.  “BUT YOU DIDN'T HEAR THAT FROM ME OKAY???”  The silence persisted.

“Damn...that's gay.”  Lena may have been uncharacteristically quiet about her comment but through the deafening silence everyone had heard it.  Ghost scrunched up his hood as much as possible and slammed his head down on his arms on the table, arms crossed as tight as he could get them.

“He gets flustered the same way you do, Asylum.”  Sari laughed.

“Because  _ that's _ a roaring complement.”  Asylum gently elbowed Sari in the gut, only making her laugh more.

“Thanks.”  Ghost’s voice was muffled but impossible to ignore.  Mimi’s curiosity was far from sated, however.

“You neglected to tell us his name you know.”

“I never should have said anything.”  Ghost didn’t even sound angry like he usually did, he just sounded, tired.  As if he was actually willing to fall asleep.  Mimi slowly got closer to him, as to not attract attention.

“Tell ya what; if you tell me his name, you can go back to the guest room and get away from these loonies.”  Mimi whispered to Ghost, feeling sympathetic to his predicament but also using it to her advantage (somewhat awful).  Ghost weighed his options, and decided he would really rather get out of the room than hold onto information.

“His name is Johnny Toast.  Yes I’m aware it rhymes with my name, no I’m not dating him for that fact.”

“That’s so cute though!!!”  Ghost shot Mimi a look.  “Right, let’s get you out of here.  Come on, get up, Asylum wouldn’t dare stop me.”    Mimi grabbed Ghost’s wrist and started walking away, barely leaving enough time for him to get up without tripping.  The others were too busy talking and laughing to notice that two people had gotten up and left the table.  The door that was previously locked was now open, so neither of them had any trouble escaping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> justin timberlake said it was gonna be gay. and justin timberlake is never wrong.


	7. Storytime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me? serious? I could never

The door closed quietly behind the two escapees, muffling the sounds of laughter from the previous room.  They had slipped into the inner gardens of the castle, which was perfectly kept and almost exploding with plant life.  Her gardens are Mimi’s pride and joy, she worked on them almost constantly.  Mimi walked slowly, inspecting the plants to see if there were any signs of wilting or unhelpful bugs, a habit she picked up over the years.

“They a little too loud for you?”  Mimi asked Ghost, who looked very relieved at getting out of that social situation.

“Something like that.”

“Hah.  If you aren’t used to them it’s kinda hard to tell that they don’t hate you, huh.”  Mimi admitted, aware that her circle of friends is not exactly conventional,  _ especially _ when it came to socializing.

“...you mean they don’t?”  Ghost was genuinely confused, as, to him, all the signs they gave him were of clear hatred.

“...no, they don’t.  They’re like that with everyone.”  Ghost didn’t know how to react.  He knows the people he deals with back home are weird, but beating someone up was still considered at  _ least _ rude, if not worse.  This place really did not make a lick of sense to him.

“I...okay.”  That was the only thing he could verbalize over his self doubt and confusion, but Mimi’s attention was already elsewhere, directed at the little troll that she found sleeping under the juniper berry bush.  She gently pushed Kajsa’s shoulder.

“Kajsa, you know you shouldn’t be sleeping outside.”

“Wuuuh.”  Kajsa made a noise, unhappy that he was woken from his slumber.

“Come on you big baby, sleep indoors unless you want another bath.”  At the mere mention of a bath, Kajsa bolted up, eyes wide and ready to do whatever he’s told.  Mimi laughed, while Ghost took a step back, still unsure of what the weird dog was capable of.  Unfortunately for him, the movement caught Kajsa’s attention, and Kajsa ran over and started running circles around Ghost.

“I think he likes you!”  Mimi laughed some more, while Ghost had his arms up and watching Kajsa circle him like a really fast shark.

“Yeah well I  _ don’t _ like  _ this _ !”  Ghost was starting to feel dizzy.

“Oh come on you pansy!  Put your hand out for him, he’ll stop running.”  Following Mimi’s advice, Ghost slowly, tentatively, lowered one of his hands to eye level with Kajsa, waist height for him.  When Kajsa finished his circle and saw that Ghost had one of his hands down, he immediately stopped running and put his head under Ghost’s hand and rubbed against it, like a cat does.  Ghost slowly moved his hand over the top of Kajsa’s head.

“I didn’t expect his fur to be this soft.”

“Yeah, well that’s what happens when a troll becomes a household pet.”  Mimi kneeled down and pat the ground twice, beckoning Kajsa over to her.  Kajsa moved away from Ghost and walked over to Mimi to be pet by her as well.  Ghost felt a little sad that Kajsa walked away from him, he didn’t know why.  “Anyways I promised to get you back to your room, didn’t I?  Come on, it’s this way.”  Mimi got up and walked across the garden towards another door.  Kajsa started following her, but stopped and turned around halfway to see if Ghost was following him, and Ghost felt practically forced to follow with that look from Kajsa.  He still didn’t know why an ugly thing like that had such power over him.

The door slowly closed behind Ghost as Mimi walked down the hall, not looking back to see if he was there.  Ghost would use this opportunity to slip away again but Kajsa was walking immediately to the left of him, practically rubbing up against his legs while managing to keep pace, limiting his options severely.  Mimi yawned and stretched her arms up in the air, before dropping them back down at her sides unceremoniously.

“Why were you guys playing cards in the dead of night if you get tired?  Seems kinda stupid to me.”  Ghost commented.

“I guess it’s our own little tradition at this point.  We’ve been doing this for a long time now, playing cards under the moon every week.”  Mimi’s fatigue was evident in her voice.

“Still,  _ why _ ?”  Ghost repeated like an annoying child on a long car ride.

“Pff, nobody really remembers.  Lena still holds to it that it started back when Asylum was a vampire for that short while and couldn’t sleep, so we stayed up with him and played cards and stuff.”  Mimi said, a nostalgic tinge in her voice.  Asylum may have matured a bit since then, but he was still that bratty baby faced thief that hired her all those years ago.

“Speaking of, why do you  _ like _ that guy.  He’s  _ awful _ .”  Mimi laughed at Ghost’s complaining because, well, he isn’t wrong, Asylum  _ is _ kind of awful, but not dealbreakingly so like Ghost was making him out to be.

“It can be hard to tell he cares a lot if you don’t know what to look for.  He has very different ways of expressing things compared to say, me or Sari, or maybe even you.”  Mimi walked up to the guest room door to find that the doorknob had basically been busted beyond repair, as half of it was on the floor.  She didn’t see any of the dremora guards walking around so she didn’t comment.  For all she knew he really had to go but nobody had heard him when he asked to leave.

“Yeah how did you stay around him long enough to make  _ that _ up.”  Ghost scoffed, and Mimi gasped.

“I can see why he’s so rude to you.  And, for the record, I used to be his bodyguard, he hired me.  No, Kajsa,”  Mimi gently guided Kajsa’s hand away from the metal bits on the ground with her foot, “anyways this is your stop.  Go on.”  Mimi swung the door open for Ghost.  As the door swung open, Kajsa immediately bolted into the room and jumped on the bed, right in the middle.  Only when he did this was it noticed that there was a bunch of junk on the bed, twigs and bent coins and even a sword hilt was in there somewhere.  Mimi had her suspicions about who was responsible for breaking the doorknob.

“Is that a loss meme?  It is.  That’s a loss meme.”  Ghost recognised a certain pattern in some of the sticks laying in the pile and felt an anger indescribable.  If it should help the audience reading, this is the same anger one gets when they are rickrolled.

“What’s a ‘meme’?”

“How do you… right, medieval times.  Don’t know what memes are.  Ha, Meme-i.”  Ghost almost laughed at his own joke.

“Yeah, that’s my name, why did you emphasize that part?”  Mimi was beyond confused at Ghost’s apparent display of humor that he did not feel like explaining.

“Ugh.  Anyways why did that troll-”

“Kajsa.”  Mimi interrupted him.

“-whatever, did he put all that trash in my room because he’s trying to say  _ I’m _ trash?”

“Of course not!!  He can’t tell the worth of items he just wants to give you stuff!”

“Yeah well he shouldn’t.”

“Do you want me to get him out of the room?”  Ghost didn’t even have to look at Kajsa rolling around adorably on the bed to give his response:

“ **No.** ”

“Well...okay.  I’m going to go and see if I can find something to keep this door closed so it doesn’t swing open while you’re sleeping.”  Mimi continued down the hall to go find some rope or something, leaving Ghost and Kajsa to their own devices, which was probably not the best idea on her part.  Ghost went over to the bed and sat down, head in his hands.

“Why did I have to be stuck  _ here _ of all places??”  He mumbled, and Kajsa wormed his way over to Ghost, pushing some of the miscellaneous items off the bed in the process.  “Like, I’m stuck with a bunch of people that constantly harass me and beat me up to near death  _ without _ killing me, and that one guy keeps dragging me around everywhere and can make  _ fire _ come out of his hands, absolutely  _ nobody _ takes me seriously, and worst of  _ all _ I’m stuck venting to a  _ troll _ instead of actually getting some  _ input _ from Johnny.”

“Wrrrr.  Mmph.”  Kajsa laid his head down on Ghost’s lap.  Ghost started petting him absentmindedly.

“It’s just, why does this stuff always happen to  _ me _ , you know?  Why am  _ I _ always the one that has to get stuck in foreign dimensions away from all the people I care about.  Which may be like, one person, but that still counts!”  while Ghost was ranting, Kajsa slid off the bed and started sifting through the pile of items that had dropped to the floor.  “The hell are you doing??  I’m venting here!”  Ghost looked up, more than a little upset that he was no longer being listened to by the one being around he thought it was safe to vent to.  Kajsa made a pleased troll noise, whatever that sounds like, and hopped back on the bed with something in his hand, which he placed in Ghost’s hand.  It was a book.  Kajsa sat down and looked at Ghost expectantly.  Ghost, however, was unable to even read the cover of the leather bound tome.  “I can’t read this you weird dog.”  Ghost tossed the book aside.  Kajsa looked like he was thinking for a moment, like he understood what Ghost had said.  Then he rocketed off the bed and ran out of the room as fast as his oddly proportioned legs could carry him.

“Thank you for showing such kindness and understanding!!!”  Ghost shouted after him bitterly.  Great, now he was alone, sitting surrounded by useless trash in a place where people don’t even use the english language when writing.  He’s never going to get home at this rate.  He pulled out his phone and started compiling some of the footage he got, if he didn’t trim it down his phone memory was going to be filled before he got enough good footage on it.

“Wow hey what’s the rush buddy is something wrong??”  Asylum’s voice and clumsy rushed footsteps echoed down the hall.  Ghost sighed in frustration, he  _ really _ didn’t want to deal with him right now.  Kajsa ran back into the room, pulling Asylum along by his hand.  Asylum stopped at the door and took in the scene while Kajsa jumped back on the bed, looking for the book Ghost had thrown.  “Wow...what kinda tornado happened here?”

“Very funny.  Apparently Kajsa brought all this stuff in because he ‘likes me’ or whatever.  That’s what Meme-i told me, anyways.”

“Why did you emphasise part of her name?  You know what, not important.”  Asylum carefully stepped into the room, careful to not step on any of the multitude of things that littered the floor.  “Well it was, nice of him to try to make you feel at home, I guess.”  Kajsa found the book and picked it up, taking it to the foot of the bed and waving it close to Asylum, who just chuckled.  “I guess he wants me to read.”

“...you seriously aren’t going to  _ read _ , are you?”  Ghost asked, offended that he was possibly going to get read to like he was a kid or something.

“Well I was just going to read to him, but if you want to listen I guess I’ll oblige.”  Asylum waved his hand at Kajsa, and he got down from the bed, just in time for all of the presents he had brought went flying up against the wall, clearing off the bed.  Asylum sat down on the bed, opposite from Ghost, and Kajsa hopped up and cuddled next to him.  Ghost tried to get up, but he found that his legs weren’t moving.  Asylum opened the book.  Ghost can only move his torso and arms and head.  He was pretty sure this was the definition of torture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only the Gods can stop me from posting fic using the school laptops


	8. Wholesome Straight People

Ghost woke up, which panicked him because he didn’t remember falling asleep.  He tried to sit up, but something was weighing him down, not like when his legs were frozen though.  Whatever mass that was on top of him shifted slightly, prompting him to open his eyes and look down to see a certain troll laying across him, fast asleep.  Ghost quickly glanced around the room, seeing that the door was held closed with rope and was still missing the handle and lock, and all of the ‘presents’ Kajsa had brung him were now in a pile in a corner, and on the nightstand was a small plate which had a few grapes and a small block of cheese, and his pack with a newly chewed strap was hanging off the chair next to the nightstand and  **what** .  Something chewed his bag!!  He tried to get up to go look at it closer, but couldn’t manage to move Kajsa off of him.

“Get off me you ugly animal!”  Ghost tried shoving him off again, which again, did not work as Ghost is too weak and Kajsa is too heavy, and Kajsa still did not wake up.  Ghost wracked his brain, trying to remember the troll’s name to see if using it would prompt any response.  “What was your name?  Kansas?  Carol?  No those are too normal.  Kamsa?  Kajsa?” at the mention of his name, Kajsa made a little noise and woke up.  “Kajsa!  That’s your name!  Okay, Kajsa, get!  Get down!”  Ghost gestured for him to get off the bed as much as he could given his limitations.  Kajsa slowly rolled over, off of Ghost, and to the edge of the bed, which wasn’t quite what Ghost asked of him but it was still satisfactory.  Ghost practically sprang up from the bed and beelined to the chair where his damaged bag hung, picked it up and held the damaged part of the strap in his hands.  He angrily stormed up to Kajsa, who was still only half awake and reclining on the bed, and shoved the strap in his face.  “Did you do this?”  Kajsa slowly opened his eyes.  “Well!!  Did you!!”  Kajsa slowly opened his mouth and bit down on the strap, and Ghost yanked it back and held the entire bag close to his chest with a huff.  He wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting to happen.  And he would’ve started yelling at Kajsa too, if his stomach hadn’t decided to growl loudly at that particular moment.

Ghost looked over to the small plate of food on the nightstand.  Asylum must’ve accidentally left it in here when he decided to bore him to sleep, but Ghost didn’t recall Asylum bringing anything else into the room except himself.  He could have summoned it, Ghost guessed, but that still leaves the question of why he would have left it, because even though Asylum is extremely annoying he didn’t seem scatterbrained.  But that didn’t matter now, because it was within his reach and he was hungry, so he was going to eat it.

* * *

Sari woke up with her arms wrapped around Asylum, who was still asleep.  He didn’t need to sleep, but Sari always loved it when he would sleep next to her anyways, just so they could be close to each other.  She slowly started moving her arms out from around him, carefully watching his face to ensure he doesn’t wake up.  Not that Sari  _ needed _ a reason to look at his face, tranquil and peaceful in his slumber. His peace was in stark contrast to the jagged scars that are not only present on his face, but the rest of his body as well. This was just a different angle than the one she usually got, since he usually wakes up before her and the height difference between them makes it hard to get at eye level.  Sari attempted to get up, but stopped when she was met with unexpected protest.

“Nooo...too cold without you…”  Sari chuckled at his soft and sleepy voice begging her to stay.

“Well one of us has to make breakfast, and I know for a fact you shouldn’t be allowed to go near a cooking pot or an oven.”

“Make one of the servants cook then.  Too cold for us to not be cuddling at this exact moment.”

“You’re whining like a child, Asylum.”  Asylum took this opportunity while he had Sari distracted by talking to quickly wrap his arms and legs around her torso before she got up.

“Perhaps.  I’m right though.”  Sari had too much heart to shove Asylum off, so she got up from the bed anyways with him still attached.

“Your feet aren’t even touching the floor.”  Sari remarked, barely even surprised that Asylum was acting like the child he is, still holding the blanket around his shoulders like a cape as he continued to piggyback.

“Mm.”  Asylum wormed up a little bit and rested his head on Sari’s shoulder, eyes closed and a smug and contented grin on his face.

“At least let me use my arms you horrid little man!”  Sari laughed and twirled around, swinging Asylum this way and that, only making Asylum hold on tighter.  Sari nudged the door open with her knee and walked down the hall, still trying to make Asylum fall off, both of them laughing.  The laughter echoed through the halls as she clumsily ran down them, her balance thrown off by an additional person to carry.  Sari was able to make it to the kitchen in the chaos.

“Okay now, seriously, let me at least use my arms.”  Sari huffed; at least carrying her husband across the castle was good exercise.

“The floor is freezing though!  I didn’t bring any shoes either.”  Sari could almost hear the pout in Asylum’s voice as he whined.

“Well you should have thought about that before you decided to use me as your personal carriage service.  Now get down.” she demanded.  Asylum hesitated, which only made Sari more impatient, and she shook again to show it.

“Okay okay how about...you set me down on the counter so I don’t have to touch the floor?”  Asylum tried to compromise, and it worked because Sari worked her way over to a clear counter and stood backwards in front of it, letting Asylum leave go of her and sit on it, blanket tucked underneath him.

“Is that satisfactory, my liege?”  there was a hint of a mocking tone in her voice as she set about, pulling cast iron pans from cupboards and laying them out on a different counter.

“Verily my Queen, though I must say that anything performed by you shall always be an extraordinary act, no matter how ordinary the task.”  despite just having woken up not even ten minutes ago, Asylum was always ready with the wordy and flowery sentences that make Sari blush all shades of purple.  As she walked by, she quickly pecked him on the cheek without stopping and went over to the walk in pantry, making Asylum squawk in outrage because what, suddenly he couldn’t kiss her back?  Unacceptable.  He tied two ends of the blanket he was sitting on around his neck like a cape and sprang off the counter like a cat, sprinted over to the stool that rested next to the pantry door and jumped on it as quick as he possibly could.  As soon as Sari walked out of the pantry, baking supplies in hand, Asylum stood on his tip toes and grabbed her arm to stop her, then wrapped the blanket around her, effectively trapping her.  “Hahaha!  My master plan!”  he laughed dramatically.

“Oh no!  I have been trapped!  Whatever shall I do?”  Sari decided to play along with his antics, childlike as they were.  That was always one of the things she liked about him, anyways, he kept his childlike wonder and glee after all he’s been through.

“Muah ha ha!  Now you shall be subjected to numerous cruel tortures!  Including...kisses!!!”  even if it’s impossible for a human to have a smug cat face Asylum would still manage to do it in moments like this.  But before Asylum could start kissing Sari, they were  _ rudely  _ interrupted by Ghost walking in, who had planned to pilfer some more food, since he knew where the kitchen was now.  Asylum and Sari turned their heads to him, Asylum looking particularly upset.

“Can you two  _ please _ stop being heterosexual in my vicinity.  It’s disgusting.”  Ghost, again, sounded disgusted at the love he was being ‘forced’ to see.  Of course, he will never tell the real reason he doesn’t like it, no no no, he would never.  The less these crazy people knew about him the better.  Of course, Asylum doesn’t respond well to being told not to do something, even less so if it’s an unreasonable request, and kissed Sari anyways, making Ghost shield his eyes so he didn’t have to see it.  Asylum whispered something to Sari and vanished, leaving the blanket draped on her shoulders, the deep purple of it contrasting the soft pink of her robe.

“You can open your eyes now, tiny man.”  Sari readjusted the blanket on her shoulders so it won’t fall off, and started walking over to the counter where Asylum was sitting previously.

“That is  **not** my  **name** .”

“Of course it isn’t, that is the point of a nickname, is it not?”  Sari put the ingredients on the counter and started measuring them as best she could, given the old and inaccurate tools she was using.  Ghost really couldn’t argue her point, because well, she was right.

“That doesn’t mean I like it.”  Ghost said forcefully, like he was demanding something even though no demand was made.

“We will find you a different one then.  Alright, now, do you like apples or peaches more?”  Sari said, not skipping a cheerful beat, which made Ghost upset for whatever reason.

“What kind of question is that?”

“I’m making fruit pastries for breakfast.  Which do you like more?”

“Why do you want my opinion…” Ghost mumbled, “uh, apples, I guess.”

“Apples it is!”  Sari pulled a bag of apples from a barrel, honestly surprising Ghost.

“Why’d Asylum disappear?  Is he trying to hide from me or something?”  Ghost walked further into the room and noticed the height of the counters, then pouted, seeing them so tall and un-hop-on-able.

“He went to get dressed?  People don’t usually greet and talk to others in their pyjamas.”

“That’s reasonable enough I guess.  Why are you still here then?  Unless those are your normal clothes, which I don’t doubt at this point.”  Sari laughed heartily at what she had thought was a joke.

“I cannot teleport like Asylum can.  Plus, someone needs to make breakfast.  He will be back soon.”

“Oh, joyous day."  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my children wanted extra fluff, I will give them extra fluff


	9. Mistakes

Asylum walked back into the room a few minutes later, in regular clothes and as mentally prepared as he could be in such short time to handle being around Ghost again.  He had told Sari to keep a close eye on him so he doesn’t get hurt doing something incredibly stupid, because if anyone can stop him from doing something it’s her.  Sari was kind of paradoxical like that, the sweetest and most traditionally feminine person in his friend group, but also the strongest and most capable warrior.  Ghost audibly groaned and exaggerated his eye roll when Asylum entered the room, making Sari snicker into her mug of citrus tea she had made.

“Are you taking his side???”  Asylum squawked in outrage.  “I've been  _ betrayed _ ,” Sari is giggling at Asylum's dramatics, “by the one closest to me! Stabbed through the back, dagger left in!”  Asylum exaggerated his collapse to his knees, hand to his back as if he had actually been stabbed.

“Is he always like this?”  Ghost complained from his countertop vantagepoint.

“I think it's cute.”  Sari was smiling while watching Asylum continue to carry on about the supposed betrayal.

“ _ How _ .”

“I  _ am _ right here, you know.”  Asylum broke his monologue to snap back at Ghost, who really just harshes his usually somewhat playful mood when he’s around friends.  Sari put her tea down on the table and got up, walked over to Asylum and offered her hand to help him up.  Asylum took her up on that offer and fully stood up, brushing off his clothes.

“Yeah, and I'm over here.”  Nobody but Ghost knew what that was supposed to mean, but it was said like a witty retort so the intention at least was clear.

“And to think we were having a relatively civil discussion before...”  Lament laced Sari’s voice.

“ _ ‘Civil discussion’ _ ??  I thought you were an orc, they don’t  _ care _ for civil discussion.”  Even with the fire roaring in the oven, the silence for a single moment was deafening.  Sari’s face contorted into one of surprise and disgust, eyebrows furrowed as far as possible and mouth hanging open.  The next thing Ghost saw was how detailed the floor was, because his face was up against it; Asylum had shoved him off the counter.  “What the hell was that for??”  Asylum glared at Ghost and his angry inquiry, wishing he had a sword with him to point at the offender to convey exactly how serious his offence was.  Sari slowly walked over, crouched and sat down next to Ghost, and smiled sweetly, barely uttering her next line;

“Yes, I am very traditionally feminine, which a lot of people seem to think is odd for an orc, especially one so decorated in battle as I.  But make no mistake, slight me again and I will crush your head easier than a paper lantern.  Are we clear?”  Ghost’s gut wrenched when the reality of his remark dawned on him.

_ What was he thinking? _ . All he could manage was a strained “mhm”, which seemed to be enough for them, as Sari got up and both of them left the room, leaving Ghost to contemplate what he just did.

* * *

Ghost was still on the floor when Sari came back in to the room to check on the pastries she had put in the oven.  She avoided looking at him, breezing past and keeping her focus on the clay oven across the room.

“Are you ready to apologise to me.”  Sari said, back still turned to Ghost.

“Yeah, I...ah, I-”  Ghost had trouble speaking a single word.  He fiddled with the drawstrings on his hoodie.  Sari paused and turned her head slightly to listen, but still avoided looking at him.  “I really...messed up.  Orcs don’t exactly get a lot of good press where I’m from.”  He feels like he’s suffocating.

“And…?”

“And...that made me view you in a negative light that isn’t true. And I… don’t really think before I speak.”  Ghost felt like shriveling away into nothing is a good career prospect.

“ _ And? _ ”  Sari was still waiting for what she had demanded of him.

“I’m...sorry.”  Ghost felt lightheaded from the anxiety that apologising had given him. What if he messed up? What if she didn’t forgive him?

Sari sighed and took the tray of tarts out of the oven, walked over and set it down on the counter beside Ghost, still not looking at him.

“Lots of people make mistakes.  Just please, don’t do that again.”  Sari said solemnly.  After being around her cool friends for so long, what Ghost had said to her was sobering.

“I won’t.”

“Thank you.”  She slid the tarts onto a cooling rack.  Silence once again made itself at home for a good minute.

“You said that orcs don't get ‘good press’ where you're from, what exactly do you mean?”  Ghost sighed at her query, but thought it would be best to explain.  Sari sat back down with her now-cold tea.

“In a lot of stories, orcs are the bloodshed-craving generic bad guys.  Not like there's anyone to  _ prove _ otherwise.”

“Does nobody stand up for this?  No orc thinks that is wrong and takes a stand?”

“Well...orcs are just a...um... _ fictitious _ race back home.  They don’t exist there.”  Sari was incredibly confused, and no question that Ghost had answered for her so far had cleared anything up.  If anything, it revealed more fog.

“Then how are we written about?”  Ghost made wild gesticulations and noises that could be words, if his train of thought didn’t keep stopping in the middle of them.  “Ah, you do not know, then.  That’s alright.”  Sari forced a smile in his direction but, as far as Ghost was concerned, all of her facial expressions look pretty forced.

“Do I need to kick his ass again??”  Asylum called from the other side of the door, making Sari laugh a little bit.

“No!  He is fine now!”  Sari said back, prompting Asylum to walk into the room, still deciding to throw a quick glare to Ghost regardless as he beelined to the sweets.  Ghost scooted along the floor, finding getting up and walking too much effort, closer to Sari’s place by the fire and warmed his hands.  His stomach growled.  “Would you like tea?  There are more leaves in the cupboard.”  She offered.  Ghost huffed and looked the other way, which Sari took as a yes, even if there was a refusal to outright admit so.  Luckily for her, she had neglected to put away the tea box and it was actually right next to her, so she didn't even have to get up.  She wiped the rim of the empty mug, put more leaves in, then leaned over and grabbed the kettle from its perch over the fireplace and poured out the water, placing the now empty kettle on the floor.  She handed the mug to Ghost, who was unaware that it wasn't exactly clean.  He set the mug down next to him.

“You know, you're a lot easier to trust than your husband over there.”  Ghost said, almost having the strength to look at her when he was speaking.

“That is…” Sari glanced over to Asylum, who was currently hopping around because he tried to eat a tart when it hadn't cooled yet and burned his mouth, “not entirely surprising, if I'm being honest.”  Ghost ducked his head down and snorted, the first time Sari saw him laugh, which took her by quite a bit of surprise.  “Well it’s true!  He doesn’t conduct himself like a trustworthy individual!”  she giggled, keeping her voice down so Asylum would have a harder time hearing her.

“Aren’t you supposed to be his  _ supportive wife _ ?”  Ghost harped Sari, turning around to look at her, curiosity overcoming his anxiety from previously apologizing.

“Oh please, poking fun is just showing appreciation around here, little ghostbuster.”  Sari smiled at him, befuddling him even more, especially with the included nickname that he didn’t have time to form an opinion of in the moment.

“Hey what are you guys talking about?”  Asylum had quietly walked over to the two of them, catching them both by surprise, though neither of them deigned to show so.

“You, surprisingly.”  Ghost replied, good mood suddenly gone.

“Oh?  All good things, I hope.”

“Things, certainly.  Good?  Depends on your perspective.”  Sari said cheekily.  Ghost averted his eyes and took a sip of his tea.  Asylum gasped in outrage.

“I  _ cannot believe _ the  _ absolute insolence _ !!  My own wife!!  Berating me and soiling my  _ pristine name _ !!”  Asylum full well knew his reputation was far from what he was claiming it to be, but admitting so would ruin the joke.

“Oh I think your  _ reputation _ will survive, you drama king.”  Sari exaggerated her eye roll.

“Damn right I'm the drama king!”  Asylum puffed out his chest proudly.

“Because that's the biggest title you have.”  Ghost mumbled into his cup.

“ _ Hey _ !!  I am the Arena Grand Champion!!”

“Yeah, the one from 188 years ago, honey.”  Asylum lightly punched Sari in the arm for her (true) comment and scowled.  Ghost snickered.

“ _ Wow _ I had no idea you were  _ that _ old!”  Ghost added, to which Asylum put on a childish pout and crossed his arms.

“I'm not that old.”  Bitterness permeated Asylum’s voice.

“Yes, and also I'm shorter than you.”  Sari continued her harassment of her husband.  Asylum angrily sputtered, unable to form a complete word, let alone a sentence.  Sari laughed loudly, voice echoing off the stone walls and stone floors, making it seem a lot louder than it was.  Ghost, meanwhile, wasn't sure of the emotion he was currently feeling.  Confusion, definitely, but there was also something else.  Something he really isn't used to feeling, especially in the company of who were basically kind strangers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof I've been updating slower than usual. Sorry about that. Mental health has kinda been all over the place.


	10. In which two idiots try to be nice to each other without actually being nice to each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> emotions aren't my strongsuit, neither is it theirs

“So, ready for another day of looking for a portal that may or may not even exist?”  Asylum asked cheerfully, waiting by the door and looking expectantly at Ghost.  Breakfast had finished and Sari left the room, leaving the two to their devices, which may not have been the best move on her part.

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”  Ghost grumbled, getting up anyways.  He much rather people like Sari or Mimi be near when he had to put up with Asylum, but unfortunately that isn’t the case here.

“I’m not trying to joke, I’m trying to be positive!  Something we can both work on, evidently.  Come on!”  Asylum opened the door and gestured for Ghost to walk through.  Ghost didn’t budge, looking very displeased with Asylum.  “What?  Was it something I said?”

“You don’t  _ really _ know how to get me back home, do you?”  Ghost’s tone was scathing.

“...what?”  Asylum squinted in confusion.

“You’re just hoping for some random ass portal to pop up so you don’t have to do any work.”  He accused.

“Hey, you got here through a random portal, right?  It can still be lurking around here, those kind of things rarely close forever.”  Asylum dismissed Ghost’s outburst, wanting to get home fast is understandable but the insult to his intellect was not.

“That’ll take  _ forever _ though!!  Isn’t there anything quicker??”  Ghost whined, stomping his foot on the ground for emphasis.

“Well, we  _ could _ go and sneak into the arcane university’s library to find out how to summon a portal to a place that isn’t anchored to Nirn, if you so desire.”  Asylum decided to leave out the part where he isn’t allowed there.

“...that scans with a fantastic degree of confidence considering I understood about half of that.”  Ghost’s comprehension was less than fifty percent, but he wasn’t gonna admit it.

“Yeah, thought as much.  I said we have to go to a library to research how to make the specific type of portal that got you here if you wanna get home faster.”  Asylum rephrased.

“That sounds boring.”  Ghost deadpanned.  Being bored is something he would really rather avoid.

“Yeah well those are the options kid.”  Asylum shrugged.  Honestly he wouldn’t mind a quiet few hours of reading some books.  The room went quiet as Ghost weighed his options.  On the one hand, just looking for the portal would mean he wouldn’t get bored, but it would take forever, on the other hand waiting for Asylum to research stuff would probably get him home faster but he would get dreadfully bored, and he just  **can’t** have that.

“Is there anything to do other than read there?  I kinda can’t read, here.”  Ghost realized that he probably shouldn’t have said that and almost put his hand to his face in exasperation at himself.

“You can’t read?...OH!!!  You crossed dimensions, the scriptature used here is probably completely foreign to you, don’t worry there’s plenty of stuff to do if you can stay quiet.  And I’m guessing that’s a big  _ if _ .”  Asylum misinterpreted what Ghost had said in a way that Ghost should be grateful for.

“I guess I’ll go there, then.”  Ghost resigned.

“Great!  Let’s go get some disguises!  I think the wardrobe is down this way.”  Asylum walked away from the door outside and deeper into the castle, too deep in trying to remember where he was going to check if Ghost was following, which he was as he still had questions.

“Disguises??  I’m not gonna have to dress all gaudy and stuff like you do, do I?”

“Hey!  It’s only gaudy because it’s gone out of fashion by the time  _ you _ rolled around!”  Asylum defended.

“Yeah, uh-huh, okay.”

“My fashion is not that bad!!!”

“OH  _ really _ now??  All of your other friends dress pretty normal!  Outdated, but normal!”

“Oh yeah??  Well do normal people have a need for  _ this _ ?”  Asylum flared the cape he was wearing, completely obscuring Ghost’s vision of him.  When the cape fell down, Asylum was gone, the cape vanished as well once it hit the floor.  Ghost looked around, trying to see if he could see Asylum, but he wasn’t anywhere to be found.  Then, Ghost got an idea.  A wonderful, awful idea.

“Wow, thank  _ goodness _ Asylum is gone!”  Ghost exaggerated his voice to an almost comedic level.  Asylum reappeared, broken look on his face.

“Hey.”  Asylum’s voice was soft, as if he had actually been hurt.  He looked Ghost in the eyes, well, from Ghost’s perspective he was.  Ghost’s plan had worked, and that brought a smug look to his face.

“Come on, the sooner I get home the better.”  Ghost gestured for Asylum to keep walking, to the latter’s great confusion.  But he complied, slowly starting off down the hall once more, Ghost in tow.

Asylum mumbled to himself as he spoke the layout of the castle aloud, trying to remember the exact place his wardrobe was.  Of course he has a huge walk in wardrobe, complete with many disguises should he, or someone else of his approximate size, need them.  Everyone rolled their eyes and laughed at the notion of such a thing being needed, but  _ who’s laughing now _ , he keeps thinking to himself.

“Alright, this is it!  Please refrain from touching the stuff on the upper shelves, high probability that it’ll fall and hit you in the face ‘n all.”  Asylum swung open the door to his special walk in closet, full of clothes and armor sets on hangers and racks.  Despite his warning, Ghost immediately rushed into the room, rustling a bunch of hung up clothes as he passed.  Asylum rushed in after him, quickly stopping the motion of anything Ghost set off kilter.  “Hey!!  Be careful!”

Ghost’s eyes found the bumblebee armor, complete with red cape, stood up on a rack in the corner, “you know what?  I take back what I said before, you must be holding back today with the green shoulder cape and leather based shirt.”  Asylum chuckled a little at Ghost’s insult to one of his favorite sets of armor.

“Oh yeah?  And you look like the personification of major depression but I’ve managed to keep my mouth shut about it until now.”  he started sifting through the clothes rack full of robes, looking for the ones he, ahem,  _ obtained _ from the Mage’s College.

“That’s the point.”  Ghost craned his neck to look at all the helmets on the upper shelves that Asylum had mentioned.  Asylum shook his head to hide his mild surprise.

“Well you’ll need a better look if we’re going out in public, especially if you’re going to be anywhere near me, so,”  Asylum held up a cyan colored robe that had a little embroidered patch on the chest, “I think this ought to fit if you take off your hoodie.”  Ghost froze.

“Nope.  Nuh uh.  That’s not happening.”  He held his hoodie as close to his body as possible.

“Well come on, not like any of the other sizes will fit nearly as well.”

“I’m not taking off my hoodie!!”  Ghost yelled.

“Well it’s either you commit to this disguise or it’s back to plan A.”  Asylum thought Ghost was just being ornery again and offered an ultimatum.

“I can’t take off this hoodie…”  Ghost mumbled to himself, thinking Asylum couldn’t hear.  Before he could respond with something he meant for him to hear, Asylum tossed the robe over his shoulder and walked over to Ghost.

“Well why’s that?”

“I just  _ can’t _ okay??  Leave me alone.”  Ghost leaned away from Asylum but didn’t walk away.  Silence fell on the room as Asylum thought of his response.  “No way you can make me take it off.”  Asylum carefully watched Ghost's face, trying to gauge how serious he was being. On the one hand, Ghost loved to be difficult. On the other hand, his entire body had gone tense, and his eyes were looking everywhere but Asylum's eyes, or anywhere even close to him, for that matter.  Asylum found himself wishing he was better at socializing than he currently is.

“So...that important, huh?”  Asylum didn’t know whether to get closer to Ghost or to back off, so he awkwardly stayed his position.  Ghost mumbled something, but Asylum couldn’t make out what he said.  “Sorry, what?”

“I  _ said _ , can’t I just stay here?  In the guest room or something?”  Ghost almost spat his response.  Luckily, Asylum knew he didn’t have to think about his response much here.

“I thought that, if the spell or ritual turns out to be easy, you would want to be there so you could get back home as soon as you can.  Thus, you would need a disguise to sneak into the Mage’s College with me.”  Asylum thought it odd that he had to explain his logic, as he thought it was rather obvious, but maybe the dimensional difference means a difference in how logic runs, he didn’t know.

Ghost sighed, “I’m still not taking off my hoodie.”  Asylum looked from Ghost, then to the robe, and back again, then a light bulb metaphorically turned on in his head.

“You might be thin enough that this will fit over, will that work?  It’ll be a little tight, I must warn.”  Ghost slowly turned to face Asylum, and he was flabbergasted.  Someone was willing to work  _ with _ him?  He isn’t going to try to force his hoodie off?  Something is very weird about these people Ghost ended up trapped with, but not in the normal way people are weird.  Not a normal weird at all.


	11. It's Always Sunny In Cyrodil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this one got done quick, hope it's quality is satisfactory.

“This is awful.”  The robe surprisingly fit over Ghost’s hoodie and hid it from vision, but Ghost (predictably) wasn’t satisfied.

“Oh come on, you look fine.”  Asylum hung up his previous outfit on one of the racks all neat, he had changed into a blue college robe as well and rocked the look, as he learned to do with most any outfit.

“It’s just not my style.”  Ghost huffed, playing with the hem of the sleeve.

“‘Your style’ is the Red Mountain Explosion’s aftermath, I don’t think you have much of a say.”  with Asylum’s blistering remark, Ghost glared and pulled the hood up on his hoodie, prompting Asylum to walk over and pull up the hood on the robe to hide it.  “Come on, gotta remember we’re  _ disguising _ , showing that we’re wearing any other shirts or something underneath these will give us away immediately!”

“Why do we have to do a stealth mission, anyways?  Aren’t you this all powerful demon or whatever?” Ghost set out to strike a nerve, but all he got was a dry laugh.

“I’m going to be real with you for a moment, I am not the most powerful person you’ve encountered here.”  Ghost’s eyes went wide at this information Asylum just gave him, momentarily terrified of who or what ever he just alluded to.  “So, ready to go trespass on Empire property?”

“Trespassing?  You should’ve mentioned that earlier, this just got fun!”  Ghost got a troublemaking look on his face, which Asylum matched with his own, before teleporting the both of them to the Gate of the Isles, the only stable portal between Mundus and Oblivion.

“Why does it look,” Ghost gestured to the portal, framed by a marble carving of a man screaming, “like  _ that _ ?”

“Yeah I wish I could change that too.  Unfortunately that specific symbol comes with the title, couldn’t tell you why.”  Asylum shrugged, “Anyways, this will take us to a small island in the middle of a lake nowhere near the Imperial City, so we’ll have a bit of a trek.  Did you eat enough? Because we’re not stopping until we reach the city.”

“Uh...yeah?”  Ghost was a little confused, as the question seemed out of place to him.

“Okay good.”  And with that, Asylum shoved Ghost through the portal and walked calmly in after him, small bag full of traveling gear slung over his shoulder.

* * *

“ **_WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR???_ ** ”  Ghost scrambled up after he fell down on the other side of the portal, dusting himself off as Asylum casually strolled through the portal.

“Oh like  _ you _ knew how to continue that conversation.”  Asylum started digging in his bag for his trusty map of Cyrodil as he kept walking.  There was a pause, as Ghost was astonished.

“ _ I did?? _ ”

“...oh.”  Asylum paused and looked over at Ghost awkwardly, before finally pulling out his map and looking at it, turning his back once more.  Ghost looked around where the portal took them, seeing talking to Asylum as a lost cause. They were, in the middle of a lake, with a normal-looking forest surrounding the lake for as far as he could see, and what he guessed is some old stone ruins on the closest shore.  The sun was high in the sky, a few hours must have been lost going through the portal. Speaking of the portal, Ghost pulled out his phone and quickly snapped a picture of it before shoving it back up into the sleeve of the disguise robe, which has a convenient little pocket that was probably meant for herbs or something but too bad it’s for his phone now.

“Are you expecting me to  _ swim across a lake _ or something?  Because that’s not happening.”  It had just occurred to Ghost that there was no way to just walk to their destination.

“I mean,  _ I _ was going to, I don’t know about you.  Can you swim?” Asylum asked, tucking his map into his bag.

“I can swim just fine, thank you very much!”  Ghost became indignant at the implication that he couldn’t do something.

“Good!  See you on the shore!”  Asylum hopped in the water with no hesitation, performing a leisurely backstroke across the water.  Ghost grumbled discontentedly and slowly shuffled his way to the water’s edge. He submerged one foot, to find the water surprisingly warm.  He looked up to see Asylum, almost casually floating along to the opposite shore, eyes to the sky. Ghost quickly slipped his phone out of the robe sleeve and snapped a picture of Asylum before putting it back in the herbs pocket, he needs a reference for who he’s talking about when he tells Toast about all of this.  Toast… _ God _ he missed Toast.  If that british breadstick materialized right next to him this instant it wouldn’t be soon enough but...what were the chances of that happening.  The only way the chances of seeing him again would increase is if he swam to the opposite shore, exactly what he said he wouldn’t do. It doesn’t look that far, anyways…

“You scared?”  Asylum called to Ghost, still not even halfway to the opposite shore.

“Shut up!”  Ghost yelled back, to which Asylum only grinned cheekily.  Ghost closed his eyes and jumped into the water. Asylum started going a small bit faster to ensure he would get to the shore first despite how easy he was taking it.  Ghost swam as fast as he could over to the other shore, which was not very fast considering he didn’t swim often. Surprisingly enough, Ghost didn’t feel like he got wet at all, everything that was covered by the robe was kept completely dry.  Asylum did, in fact, beat Ghost to the shore despite his leisurely pace, which didn’t exactly please Ghost but he tried to ignore it.

“See?  Perfectly fine!”  Asylum’s robes and traveling bag were also completely dry, though his hair was a bit out of place.  Asylum crouched and started fixing his hair using his reflection in the water as reference.

“Why didn’t you tell me that this thing is waterproof??”  Ghost pulled out his phone to test that it was working, and it was working perfectly fine, minus the scratch on the screen that’s basically always been there.

“Didn’t think it was that important, honestly.  Is it?” Asylum stood back up, satisfied with his work.

“Do you plan on telling me  _ anything, ever _ ?”

“I don’t plan much of anything, to be honest.”  Asylum admitted, but hey, it’s got him this far.

“That makes complete sense.”  Ghost scoffed.

“ _ Thanks _ .”  Asylum rolled his eyes.  “Anyways, we should stop by the Bravil chapter of the Mage’s guild to see if they have anything first.  If they have the answer there it beats walking all the way to the Imperial City.”

“What are you talking about?  Are these places??” Asylum gave Ghost an odd look in response to his question.

“Yes they are?  We’re next to Bravil right now?”

“You’re telling me that  _ that _ abandoned and haunted looking castle thing is a  _ city _ ?”  Ghost pointed at the stone walls he assumed were some old castle full of spirits from thousands of years ago.

“...yes, I am.  The door is over this way.”  Asylum started walking along the stone wall, and Ghost followed, infinitely curious about the city of ‘Bravil’.  As they were walking around the wall, next to the shoreline of the lake, a faint ringing started, well, ringing. Asylum took a deep breath, as if something relating to the ringing would need his patience.  Ghost took a handgun out of his own bag, just in case this means trouble.

“What’s that sound?”  Ghost asked, carefully scanning the area for anything that looks hostile.

“Surely you  _ must _ know.”  Asylum stopped walking and turned to Ghost, trying to gauge his reactions.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  Ghost was getting steadily more confused.

“Oh,  _ ‘tis the glorious Nirnroot! _ ”  Asylum took a mocking tone, which only baffled Ghost more.  “ _ It’s beauty is rivaled by the sun! _  Or whatever you would say I don’t know, it’s just a plant man.”  Asylum rolled his eyes.

“...I think of all the things you’ve said to me, that is the weirdest.”

“Hey those aren’t my words, they’re yours, Jordan.”  Asylum got this extremely smug look on his face.

“ **_I have no idea who that is._ ** ”  Asylum just, laughed at Ghost’s anger.

“Of course you don’t.  Also, I’m Argonian I’m just  _ super good _ at Illusion spells.”

“Will you ever stop harassing me about this Jordan guy??”  All of Ghost’s irritation rose to the surface.

“Hah, yeah, I will when I’m with the fishes.”  Asylum beamed, which only pissed Ghost off even more.  Ghost started advancing towards Asylum, as if he meant to attack, which Asylum met by bending down and picking up the mysterious plant and holding it out in between him and Ghost, saying stuff like “the power of Nirnroot compels you to stop, foul villain!”  This, of course, only made Ghost more upset. This back and forth went on for some time, but the narrator will save you from the details, as three google doc pages of petty arguing is not exactly interesting to write or read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate how Ao3 thinks that indents are optional and doesn't allow me to put them in on certain chapters like, please I need consistency and proper grammar.


	12. "How Exactly Did You Get Away With That, Again?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let it be known that I did no research for this chapter and I really just know that much about The Elder Scrolls as a franchise

The fighting has stopped, and the two miscreants had worked their way to the door in Bravil’s wall, which was flanked by two guards.

“Why the hell are those two armored dudes guarding the door?”  Ghost inquired, as he had never seen such a thing.

“Why, of  _ all _ the things you’ve seen, why is it the guard that seems weird.”  Asylum pushed open the gate doors.

“It seems suspicious.”  Ghost squinted at the next guard they passed as the duo walked through the streets, speaking hushedly to each other.

“Why do you think I’m so concerned about these disguises??”  Asylum practically hissed as he rounded a corner with Ghost in tow.  “Also don’t look directly at them, they’ll talk to you and that’s one of the last things we need right now.”

“Damn.  Looks like you can’t get away with anything here.”  Ghost looked around and found a guard no matter where he looked, finding that he was basically always being watched by multiple people very unnerving.

“Yeah no  _ wonder _ .”  Asylum huffed.  Spotting the Bravil Mage’s Guild building across the road, he tugged on Ghost’s sleeve and led him to the door so he had no way to get ‘distracted’ and wander off.  Crossing the road, Ghost caught a glimpse of a person with bright pink scales and decorated horns poking out in a circlet-like fashion around her head. He quickly shook his phone out of his sleeve and took a picture of the argonian before shoving it back into the herbs pocket before anyone noticed it.  “I don't know exactly what you're doing, but whatever it is, please stop.” Asylum said, not turning his head to speak.

“How did you know I was taking pictures??”

“You  _ do _ realize it makes a fairly distinguishable noise, right?”

“Right, that.”  Ghost shrugged, rather awkwardly as one of his sleeves was still being pulled along by Asylum.

“Well could you just, not take it out, at least while we’re in disguise.  We’re trying to blend in not stand out.”

“Unrealistic.  Blocked.” Ghost refused.  Asylum stepped up onto the sidewalk in front of the guild building (or guilding) and paused briefly for Ghost to as well, without tripping that is.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about half the time but I think I’m starting to re-accept that.  Anyways this is the Bravil chapter of the Mage’s guild, please for the love of the gods, keep your mouth shut and your hands off things while we’re in there.”  Asylum immediately regretted saying that, as he had just jinxed it but, too late now. He took a deep breath in and pushed open the door, tugging Ghost inside after him.  The interior was modest compared to what Ghost had expected, no magical conjurations flying about delivering messages, no feather pens writing away on their own on scrolls of paper.  There were, however, large crystals in display cases and scrolls wound up tightly next to little inkpots with feather pens sticking out.

“I think the Harry Potter franchise lied to me.”  Ghost mumbled, looking around the room at all the magic not going on.  Asylum have him a weird look, but walked up to the counter in the center of the room, where a mage stood, while Ghost looked around the room.

“Hello my name is Camilan Durvar, I’m with the Mage’s college and I’m looking for whatever you have on interplanar portals, specifically how to close them.”  Asylum leaned on the counter casually, trying to be as believable as possible. Ghost looked at the stuff on a counter, specifically a collection of common soul gems.

“Now why would you want something like that?”  the mage at the counter asked, eyebrows raised in suspicion.

“Well...my apprentice here,” Asylum gestured to Ghost, “opened a summoning portal without knowing how to close it.”  Ghost didn’t know quite what the madman was talking about but felt that he should be angry about it, so he shot Asylum a look.  “And I’m a destruction mage, I don’t know a whole lot about summoning portals.” Asylum shrugged. Nothing he had said was  _ technically _ a lie, only a little bend of the truth at most, so it was easier to fake authenticity.

“Now why would a conjuration mage have an apprenticeship with a destruction mage?”  The Breton behind the counter questioned, suspicion lacing their voice. Ghost wasn’t paying enough attention to respond, either, which wasn’t making either of them seem any more convincing.

After a second, Asylum coughed, “I don’t know, why  _ are _ you my apprentice Johnny?”  Ghost turned to Asylum, suddenly realizing he had to come up with a lie, and fast.

“I, umm, want to know all sorts of magic?” he eked out something that he could only hope was convincing.  Luckily, Asylum could jump off of that.

“Yes!  It’s good to know all your options before making a final decision like which branch to specialize in.”  He nodded turned back to the sorcerer, searching their face one feature at a time for any disbelief. Good thing they seemed to believe the two hellions.

“Well, I doubt we have anything here, best go check the College.”  the Breton paid special attention to Ghost, who honestly looked like he was going to steal something with the way he was looking at the soul gems.

“Ah, well, thought I might as well check while in the area.  Come on, we have a walk ahead of us.” Asylum turned around to walk out, Ghost following.  As soon as the door closed behind them and they stood outside on the sidewalk again, Ghost basically exploded into questions.

“How many types of magic  _ are _ there?  What were those huge crystals?  What’s the difference between conjuration and destruction?  What-” Asylum cut him off by raising a hand to Ghost’s face.

“I’ll explain magic when we’re out of the city.  It’s a common thing here so you not knowing basic stuff like that at your age is reason for suspicion.”  Asylum looked around to see if anyone could have overheard, thankfully most people give magic and college activity a wide berth these days so nobody was within earshot.  “Okay we’re good for now, let's get out of here.”

“Why do we have to go?  There's so many weird things here!”  Ghost protested, refusing to follow Asylum as he started to walk off.

“If you think this place is cool you’ll really like the Imperial City, biggest city in Cyrodil.  Come on let's  _ go _ .”  Asylum had a sense of urgency about him that Ghost had never seen in him before, he’s almost always seen him relaxed and irritatingly nonchalant, this was certainly a change in pace.  Ghost suddenly got concerned as to what Asylum could possibly be afraid of here of all places and decided to warily follow him, looking around everywhere for potential threats as well as getting a look at the scenery.

The big wooden doors closed behind the espionage enthusiasts, the guards still watching them closely.  Ghost glared back at the armored guards, as if to say that he could fight them and win if he wanted to.  Asylum just continued around the wall, the opposite direction of the way they got into the city. On the other side of the city, a dirt path with lines carved into it by wooden carts stretched into the woods, which Asylum starting walking on.  Ghost pulled out his phone and put it on audio record only, to save space on the memory card, for his investigation into the field of magic.

“So how many kinds of magic really  _ are _ there?  What’s the difference between all of them?”

“Okay, first off they aren’t referred to as ‘kinds’ of magic, they’re called Schools of Magic.  There are 5 schools; Restoration, Destruction, Illusion, Alteration, and Conjuration. Restoration does as it implies, it heals you or the person targeted when cast, though the healing powers do not extend to the undead, such as vampires or zombies, in fact, the Restoration school has spells that specifically harm undead creatures.”  Asylum paused and looked towards Ghost while he was walking, to make sure he was paying attention. Ghost nodded his encouragement, so Asylum continued on. “Destruction spells are what I’m most good at, those are your Fireball, your Lightning Bolt, stuff like that.” Asylum twirled a bit of lightning around his fingers as an example, and Ghost wished his phone wasn’t on audio only for this.  “Destruction has three branches of spells to take, Lightning, Fire, and Frost. I’m particular to lightning and fire, as I’m sure you have seen. I don’t use magic outside the Isles much so you probably won’t see much more until we get back there. Illusion spells are a category of spells that help you sneak, Muffle spells, spells that make people focus elsewhere so you can slip by unnoticed, even Invisibility, stuff like that.  Alteration is mostly for changing a property of what a spell is cast on, or affecting how other things interact with the object of a spell. Mages often use spells from the Alteration school to take less damage in battle with spells like Stoneflesh. And finally, Conjuration. Conjuration is the school dedicated to summoning things from different Planes of Oblivion to help in battle. Hah, in theory someone could summon  _ me _ with a Conjuration spell if they were powerful enough.  Ooohh I haven’t thought of that…” Asylum went quiet and his pace slowed, like he dawned upon some horrible truth.  After a bit of him not talking, Ghost realized that nothing new was being said and he looked at Asylum, who had a somber expression on his face.

“You done now?”  Ghost asked, a little confused at Asylum’s sudden change in tone.

“Yeah I’m fine!”  Asylum responded a little too quickly, indicating that he was lying, but Ghost didn’t press it , mostly because he didn’t care.  “So where was I?”

“You just got done explaining the Schools of Magic.”

“Right!  Now, the ‘proper method’ for spellcasting the College teaches is almost completely incorrect-”  The two continued down the road as the sun slowly began to set in the sky, uninterrupted by anything as Asylum’s lecture about magical theory bounced through the trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the post without preview button. if anyone in the chat sees a mistake feel free to message me it so I can change it later I just need to post RIGHT NOW, ya know?


	13. Inn which there might be trouble

The sun hid behind the distant mountains and casted the land in shadow, which didn’t seem to affect Asylum at all as he continued to walk to the Imperial City and ramble about magic.  Ghost was incredibly bored because  _ nothing _ was happening, nothing but listening to magic stuff.  Not to say learning about magic wasn’t cool, just that listening is a passive action, and he wanted something engaging to do.  He had long since turned off the recorder to save on battery.

“-and that’s why you don’t cast Magelight and summon a lightning atronach at the same time.”  Asylum paused to take a breath, which Ghost took as an opportunity to interject.

“Asylum.  You’ve been talking for over three hours.”  Ghost’s exasperation was clear.

“I have a lot to say!”  Asylum defended himself.

“The sun has literally set since you’ve started talking.  It was noontime when we left.”

“What, afraid of the dark, ghostman?”  Asylum smirked, though due to both the dim light and the fact that Ghost was walking on Asylum’s left side, Ghost was unable to see it.

“ _ Afraid of the dark? _  Do you even know what I do for a job?”  Ghost was insulted at the mere implication he was afraid of anything, no less the dark.

“No actually, I don’t.”  Asylum looked at Ghost, expecting him to respond with what he did for a living.  Ghost did really not want to explain what he did, because he probably be too confused to get anywhere, being from forever ago.  He rolled his eyes.

“Well I’m not going to tell you.”  He said snappily.

“Well fine then.”  Asylum replied in kind, a little confused at the sudden hostility.  Through the trees, massive buildings of polished stone gleamed in the light of the moons, surrounded by massive walls and a moat almost all the way around it.  “Lucky we’re here this early. We’ll stop in an inn for the night and get into the college in the morning.”

“Why are we stopping at an inn?  Can’t we just go right to this college place?”

“Because we have to at least pretend we’re normal humans for this disguise to work.  That will be difficult for you, I know, but this is what has to be done.”

“Yeah but  _ why? _  Can’t you use your crazy demon powers to just, immediately know what to do or something?”  Ghost waved his arms around exasperatedly in Asylum’s general direction. Asylum sighed and looked almost defeated when he answered.

“It doesn’t exactly work like that.”

“ _ Please _ don’t tell me there’s stupid fantasy rules just to make things more difficult.”  Ghost whined. He hated having to put effort into things.

“I don’t know whatever ‘fantasy rules’ are but yeah, I can’t use a whole lot of magic here.  I’ll get burned out if I do.” Asylum purposefully turned away from Ghost this time, almost ashamed that he wasn’t nearly as powerful in the normal realm of Mundus as he is in his own.

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier????”  Ghost only got angrier, following Asylum closely as he picked up pace.

“It didn’t come up!!”  Asylum paid no attention to the guards as he pushed open the doors to the Imperial City, the largest city in Cyrodil.

“hhhVFHGFDHDGFFG.”  Ghost verbally keysmashed (as gays do), causing Asylum to almost jump out of his skin at the sound, stopping dead in his tracks.

“That was one of the scariest things I think I have ever witnessed.  How did you make those sounds with your mouth.” He demanded information, trying to calm himself back down.  Ghost looked confusedly at Asylum, as if he had just asked what color his hoodie was.

“Really?  All gays can-OH THAT’S RIGHT YOU’RE HET YOU CAN’T DO THAT.”  He dawned on the realization of just how different Asylum was from him, Ghost wasn’t used to hanging around straight people so he got used to nobody batting an eye at stuff only gays can do.  Asylum gave Ghost a sidelong look and shook his head-- he had no intention of trying to decipher Ghost's nonsense. Instead he continued on, looking at the street signs of the buildings lining both sides of the street, keeping an eye out for lodging.  Ghost pouted at being ignored, upset that he didn’t get a reaction. He instead took to looking around at the city while Asylum was doing his thing. Usually when he was in or surrounded by stone buildings there would be entities to fight and little to no civilians, so seeing the stone in upkept, pristine conditions was a little disorienting.

“Over here, found the inn.”  Asylum waved Ghost over to a wooden door in one of the stone buildings, above said door hung a sign that Ghost couldn’t read.  He walked over and pushed past Asylum going into the tavern, seeing a counter with stools and a few tables around, with a staircase leading up.  There were a few customers milling about and someone tending the bar area. Asylum walked up to the bar and Ghost, not knowing what else to do, followed behind.  “You can go sit down at a table or something you know.” Ghost only glared at Asylum’s suggestion but sat down on one of the barstools anyways. “I meant at one of the tables,  _ away _ from people that could overhear us.  What is this, your first disguise mission?”  Asylum whispered harshly. Ghost, again, glared but did as he was told and got up, taking a seat at a table in the corner of the room near the stairs, away from everyone else.  He looked around the room some more as Asylum was getting rooms or whatever, spying what appeared to be an elf talking to someone. Ghost would get out his phone for a picture but the quality of the camera on his phone and the angle he had were both inadequate for any decent data gathering.  Asylum walked over to the table and sat down in a chair across from Ghost. “I got us rooms, separate ones, don’t worry. That person will be walking over to us soon, asking what we want to eat. What are you going to want?”

“I’m not hungry.”  Ghost curtly replied to his inquiry, leaning back in his chair and pouting, arms crossed.

“Well you have to eat something.  Can’t just eat nothing after the long trip we just had, that would draw attention from the innkeep.”  Asylum kept his voice low in case of prying eyes.

“I don’t want anything.”  He insisted.

“Fine, I’ll order for you then.”  The person Asylum had referred to earlier walked over and was, in fact, a cat person.  It took all of Ghost’s willpower not to take out his phone and take a picture right then and there.

“And what will you two gentlemen be having?”  They asked, accent thick and almost incomprehensible to Ghost, who was about to answer, saying that he won’t be ordering, but Asylum jumped in for him.

“I think I’ll have some of the day’s soup, and my friend over here just wants a few slices of bread.  Long journey and all.”

“Of course.”  The cat person bared their teeth in what Asylum knew was supposed to be a smile and then walked away, presumably to go get the food that had been ordered.  Before Asylum could pretend to relax, Ghost immediately had a question he needed answered.

“Did you just call me your friend?”

“...maybe so.”  Asylum dodged a real answer, looking away.

“Were you being sarcastic or..?”

“Don’t ask impossible questions.”  Asylum hid his face expertly with the shadow casted from the hood of the robe, which he had flipped up some time ago, Ghost hadn’t noticed until now.  Ghost pushed himself back in his chair, pouting but also blushing slightly if Asylum’s eyes weren’t deceiving him. An unhappy silence filled in between them for a while, seeming to stop time in a little bubble around them as the world continued to happen outside.  This bubble was only burst when their food was brought to them by the cat person from before, but neither of them really felt like eating anymore. Ghost only picked at the bread he was given, wanting to think this was some sort of joke, somehow still simmering as he ate.

“How do you even  _ do _ that?”  Asylum asked in between sipping his soup right from the bowl like the heathen he is.

“Do what?”  Ghost popped a little piece of soft bread he tore out of the slice into his mouth.

“You look so fantastically irritated even while you're eating.  How.”

“It's a talent.”  Ghost said smugly, proud that he had stumped Asylum by just being himself.  Asylum however only rolled his eyes at Ghost’s tone and reached down in to his bag that he had set beside the chair, pulling out a bunch of grapes which he started munching on.  Ghost gave him a questioning look.

“Aren't we supposed to be in disguise?” He almost chuckled in the delivery of his question.

“Grapes are amazing shut your mouth.”  Asylum gestured in a somewhat threatening manner at Ghost, only prompting a smug smirk.  Asylum threw a grape at him, managing to hit Ghost’s nose. The grape bounced onto the table afterwards, perfect for Ghost to pick it up and throw it right back at Asylum in retaliation.  Unfortunately enough for him, Asylum was skilled at catching grapes thrown at him with his mouth. Ghost huffed and went back to pecking at the singular slice of bread he was tasked with eating, while Asylum, who was already finished with his food, kept looking around the room, making sure nobody got too close and keeping his face hidden from people that could and would recognize him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gays have the special ability of "keysmash" which can be in response to anything surprising and will stun any nearby entities that are not also Gays


	14. Acting Like Normal Humans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again that burnout has been hitting me hard, sorry for the slow updates. but encouragement or praise of my work will most likely keep my motivation going!

    After practically dragging Ghost up to his room and barricading him in, morning finally came around, and with it, lots of people.  Asylum unlocked the door, finally letting Ghost get fresh air after only getting about an hour of sleep. As they walked out of the inn Asylum even gave the innkeep a friendly wave, because being ‘rude’ brings with it the wrong kind of attention for the moment.  That sudden action puzzled Ghost, but he decided, for once, not to ask about it. It was probably to do with the disguise thing. Or maybe they know each other, who knows, certainly not him.

    “Not even two days in and I’m so tired of this,”  Asylum sighed as he walked down the cobbled road, “it’d be a miracle for me to get through this without losing it.”

    “What, even being away from home takes effort suddenly?”  It was starting to dawn on Ghost that Asylum wasn’t nearly as capable as he upsold himself to be as he followed along, taking a break from looking at everything to insult his tour guide.

    “Nah it’s not that it’s all this, acting like a regular person stuff.  I can act like myself just fine but blending in is quite a bit more difficult for someone like me.”

    “‘Someone like you’ being an embodiment of revulsion, you mean?”  Asylum glared at Ghost for his comment.

    “Low blow, that’s not even my sphere of influence.”  Ghost stopped in his tracks in disbelief.

    “ _Are you implying that there’s someone out there like you but with the SPECIFIC PURPOSE OF MAKING PEOPLE DISGUSTED?”_  He didn’t know if Asylum was pulling his leg or not, which went for a lot of things he said.

    “Well, ‘like me’ is a bit of a stretch, but yes, there is a daedra out there specifically controlling creepy crawlies and things that make people shiver.”  Asylum rolled his eyes and continued on, exasperated at Ghost’s disbelief at what he thought to be common knowledge.

    “This place really does have everything doesn’t it.  Everything but plumbing, I guess.” Ghost looked at the guards by the door they were walking towards, noticing there were shimmering runes along the iron, or possibly steel, armor they wore.  “What is up with those guys huh?” He pointed.

    “ _Don’t point at them!_ ”  Asylum swatted his escortee’s hand down.  “Those are Imperial Battlemages. The runes on the armor are usually for looks, but they have a lot of magic at their disposal.”  

    “So, more than you do?” Ghost mumbled. This earned him an unimpressed look and a shove to the side of his face. “Hey, it was honest question!”

    “Sure it was.” Asylum said flatly as they put the guards further behind them.  The bridge connecting the city to the island the college was on had many braisers along the sides, meant to light the way with the purple fire they generated when night fell, but only useless on bright days like today.  Of course, only useless to those from around here. Ghost was _very_ interested in these purple flames bursting up from sigils in the stone, immediately running over to put his hand in one, Asylum grabbing his hood and yanking him back just in time to avoid any burns.  Unfortunately, Asylum forgot to factor both his own strength _and_ Ghost’s diminutive size into his calculations, sending Ghost swiftly off the bridge behind him.  Since they were only just on the other side of the door, there was no large fall for Ghost to have to suffer, only a few bruises and disorientation.  Asylum, yet again, had little awareness of the situation and thought he had just thrown Ghost down to the river below, rushing to the other side of the bridge immediately, almost falling over himself looking down, only to find Ghost laying in the grass right next to the stone wall, gazing up at the sky.  “Can you...get up?”

    “Theoretically.”  Ghost barely moved enough to get the words past his lips.  Asylum vaulted himself over the bridge fence and crouched next to Ghost, seeing some of the bruises he sustained.

    “Yeah, uh...don’t touch those, by the way.”

    “No way, with the way you reacted the mysterious purple fire stuff is _completely harmless_.”  Ghost glared at Asylum without moving anything else.

    “I can just leave you here you know.”

    “Do it.  You won’t.”  Ghost had no real knowledge of how Asylum would react, but calling bluff is fun anyways.  Asylum only huffed, getting up.

    “Come on.  Don’t have all day.”  Asylum looked away from Ghost, keeping up his weak facade of not caring.  Ghost slowly climbed to his feet, dusting off his robe a bit. They both jumped back over the fence and continued on their way to the College.

    “Okay but what _are_ these fire things?”  It took quite a bit of effort for Ghost not to go diving into one of the braisers again.

    “They’re magic fire, I have no idea how it works don’t even ask.  It _does_ hurt to touch though, I know that.”

    “They don’t put out heat though.  Why would they make a flame with no heat that still hurts?”  Ghost’s endless font of questions got on Asylum’s nerves a small bit but he wasn’t from a place where magic exists, he wasn’t just asking to be annoying, so Asylum did his best to not let it annoy him any more.

    “Most people have the sense not to go diving in to a fire, magical or not.”

    “That doesn’t answer my question.”  Ghost’s glare met Asylum’s puzzled look.

    “For...light?  Aesthetic. Both, I think, looks nicer than magelight.”  Asylum reached the door but, instead of opening it, stopped and took a deep breath.

    “Something scare you in there?”  Ghost asked, half mocking and half actually concerned that something really nasty was on the other side of that door.

    “You really want to know?”  Asylum angled his head slightly in Ghost’s direction.

    “Is that a question?”  Ghost insisted, making Asylum chuckle a little bit.

    “Easy, I can be gone in a blink of an eye with no regard for my own wishes.” Ghost, not understanding what the hell Asylum had just tried to convey, just shrugged it off as him being weird.

    Asylum pushed open the wooden doors to reveal the College, a courtyard with burns and frozen plants dotting it, more magical braisers directing attention up to the large limestone building, with two intricate metal gates to either side of the building, blocking the path beyond other than the door centered on the building.  One of the guards nodded to Asylum as they passed, Asylum nodding back to be ‘polite’. Ghost, while staying close to Asylum, took in all he could that had to do with magic in the area, paying particular attention to the symbol of an eye present in multiple places, most notably being centered on the metal gates mentioned before.

    “What’s with the eyes?”  Ghost whispered to Asylum.

    “It’s the symbol of the College, it’s on the robe you’re wearing you moron!”  Asylum whispered harshly back. “And while you’re at it, don’t try to talk to anyone other than me here, if you weird them out they’re going to want to pay attention more.”

    “ _Oh like I’M the only weird one here._ ”  Ghost mumbled bitterly.  He followed Asylum up the stairs and to the left, towards one of the metal gates.  Asylum glanced around him quickly, then faux-casually putting his hand near the gate, something in his sleeve glowing blue and making a muffled whirring sound, and then the gate popped open, Asylum immediately slipping through, Ghost diving after him, Asylum snapping shut the gate as soon as he was through.  “Yo what was _that little trick_?”

    “A little thing I picked up.  Pretty useful on locked things.”  Asylum smirked, he always kept that Sonic Screwdriver Jordan found on him, it was too useful to forget about.

    “Thank you, for being so precise and explanatory with everything in the past three minutes, it has benefited me _greatly_.”  Ghost mumbled some more stuff under his breath, presumably insults, that Asylum wasn’t able to catch, but he still glared.

    “I’m doing the best I can given the circumstances, give me a break.  Once we get to the library you just need to keep your damn hands off things if you can manage, alright?  It should be around here somewhere.” Asylum whispered back, keeping an eye out for any door that could possibly lead to the library.

    “Yeah that’s not going to happen.”  Ghost scoffed, knowing full well he would touch anything that caught his curiosity.

    “I thought as much.”  Asylum, spotting the wooden door with the right sign above it, tugging Ghost in its direction as he walked.  Pushing the door open, a massive library sprawled forth, gigantic shelves filled to the brim with magic tomes and books on magical theory and relative philosophy.  While this was a great place of learning for Asylum, to Ghost most of this was useless, due to his severe troubles with reading. “At least stay within earshot.” Asylum tried to be reasonable with Ghost as he zipped off, looking for something to fiddle with.  He shook his head and went up to the directory on the wall, trying to figure out where the information on portals would be. There was only one other person milling around the library, so everything should be fine.

 

Right?


	15. Bungus Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no upload schedule and I sincerely apologize for that rghybgdiunjk

“Theorem on Astral Entanglement...Practical Applications of Common Gems in Daedra Summoning...eh, this one sounds about right.”  Asylum found the final book he was looking for, titled ‘The Multiverse and How We Can Reach It’. He took it from the shelf and brought it over to an endtable, which he had claimed as temporarily his as it had many  _ many _ books stacked on it, all pertaining to subjects like the multiverse theory and how to summon portals.  He tried to put the worry about what Ghost would get into out of his mind, he could either be a babysitter or a researcher after all, and one of those roles has a time limit.  Asylum sat down on the chair next to the table and grabbed a random book, opening it up. He has a lot of work to do.

Ghost, now that Asylum was occupied with other things, was enjoying having basically free reign, and pittering about the place, picking up and inspecting anything he found interesting and taking pictures of what he wanted to record for later.  This included the covers of books, sigils inside said books that he couldn’t figure out, daggers that probably had enchantments on them, and more of those big bluish crystals from before. In fact, there was a whole table of them just laying out for him to borrow.  He looked around, seeing nobody there to see him take one, and quickly slid one of the smaller gems into his sleeve and stealthily slipped away as his shoes pattered on the stone floor. He wandered throughout the aisles of books, looking for Asylum so he could ask what these crystals are.  And the shelves of books were simply massive, stretching almost all the way up to the vaulted ceiling and filled with all manner of colorful books, some with gems in the spines, a lot with gold leaf pressed in to form the title of which Ghost could not read. Even if he were literate, the written language used was very very different from what was used in Ghost’s home dimension so he couldn’t read it anyways.  And even still if he  _ could _ read the scripture he wouldn’t understand what was being said at all due to his lack of magical ability as far as this dimension was concerned, so that’s  _ three _ things stacked against him in the understanding-magical-tomes department.  So instead Ghost looked towards the walls of the room, looking for a table with a huge stack of books on it instead, it would probably be easier to find Asylum that way.  Seeing what looked like that very table, he picked up his pace and walked right past the table, turning around to see Asylum, hidden by the pile of books, who was so invested in what he was reading he didn’t even seem to notice Ghost was back.

“Hey.”  Ghost tried to get his attention quietly, and no dice.  Asylum only turned the page in his book. “Heeeeyyyyy.” Ghost tried again, to the same degree of success.  Ghost stuck his hand in between the book and Asylum’s face, and Asylum batted his hand away without even looking at it.  Ghost poked him in the side of the head and Asylum snapped up to him with daggers in his glare.

“ **What.** ”  He demanded.  The sheer aggression in his voice took Ghost aback, the change in demeanor seeming sudden to him.

“Wow, okay,  _ sor _ ry.  Anyways what’s this?”  Ghost rolled the gem out of his sleeve and put it on what little room the table had on it.  Asylum put the book in his lap and rubbed his temples with both of his hands.

“That’s a soul gem.  You can trap creature souls in them.  Person souls can only be trapped in black soul gems which are even rarer to find so usually things like wolves get soul trapped.  The full ones with a soul in them can be used to enchant things or to recharge an existing enchantment. Can I  _ please _ get back to my work.”  He explained as fast as he could in hopes that the information would satisfy the displaced goblin man.

“Yeah, sure, okay.”  Ghost wandered off again, to Asylum’s relief.  He picked up his book again and put his energy into refocusing on parsing what’s on the pages.

Having been snubbed by Asylum for distracting him, Ghost once again set out to find something interesting.  Seeing nothing worth his time by what can be assumed to be the librarian’s desk, though the librarian was nowhere to be found at the moment, other than more of those soul gem things.  But, by going back to where he got the gems, by looking more carefully, he spotted what looked like some sort of taxidermy that seemed mildly interesting, so in that direction he did head.  In this little section there were much shorter bookshelves, as there weren’t as many books to hold, taxidermied heads of various animals up on the walls, and what appeared to be figurines of some very curious creatures in glass protective cases on the tops of the shelves.  One of the figures looked like a humanoid tree, one was just a big chunk of ice with what one could only assume is arms and legs, one looked kind of like Kajsa does but bigger and...meaner. Ghost looked around for some sort of info card, hopefully with pictures that he could go take so he could ask Asylum about them.  And, as luck would have it, there was a large book sitting open right next to one of the figures, and it looks like some sort of picture book! Or at least a field research book with lots of pictures in it. Either way this is exactly what Ghost needed, so he picked it up and absconded with it so he could go pester Asylum with more questions.  And now he even knew exactly where Asylum was, so he could beeline right past that mountain of books to talk to who is probably the smallest god in existence.

“Hey Asylum,”

“Don’t.”  Asylum interrupted him, having no patience to deal with Ghost and his shenanigans while he was trying to focus.  Ghost, however, was not deterred, shoving the book he found in front of the book Asylum was reading, blocking the latter’s view.

“What’s this?”  He inquired about the creature his book was open to.  Asylum simply pulled his book out from under Ghost’s, turned in his chair, and continued reading.  To this reaction, Ghost moved around to the new side the chair and shoved the picture book in front of Asylum’s book.

“Do you know how hard it is for me to focus on these dry as hell academic texts.  Do you know.” Asylum whispered, defeated.

“But I need to know what this is and that’s more important.”  Asylum pinched his nose and exhaled loudly, drawing out his breath.

“That is a chaurus.  It’s a nasty bug thing longer than the average person is tall and spits poison.  When it dies it’s second form that’s basically a big wasp/mosquito combination bursts from the shell.  It lives in deep underground caves in Skyrim, far from here so we really shouldn’t be seeing any of em.  Does this quell your need to bother me?”

“I guess.”  Ghost let go of the book into Asylum’s lap and wandered off.  Asylum sighed tiredly and pushed the book onto the floor, caring not for the antiquity of the pages, and resumed his research again.

Ghost was now on the lookout for bigger and better things, something that will really knock someone’s socks off.  He looked up on the walls, up on the tops of shelves for anything of interest, anything at all. He ended up walking onto a purple sigil on the floor, then being teleported up to a higher level of the building that had  _ much _ more interesting things, and lots less books to impede his search for interesting things.  The most interesting thing Ghost saw was up on a wall, at a height which he wasn’t sure he could reach but could definitely try.  It was a staff, hanging sideways on a plaque, with a big bauble on one end and gemstones studding the branch portion. And of course, he just  _ had _ to touch it.  He immediately rushed over to the wall right under where the staff hung, getting up on his tippy toes to even to try to reach it, but unfortunately it was meant to be just barely reachable by the standards of someone with a more average height.  Looking right, he saw a desk with a chair sitting in front of it, slightly askew. Pushing himself away from the wall, he went over to the desk and dragged the chair under the staff and it’s wall mount. He got on top of the chair and was just barely able to reach the staff, but had trouble taking it off of the mount.  He tried yanking it down with little success, he tried wiggling it to either side to slide it off but the ends of the staff were too big to slide through the fasteners. He tried hopping up on the chair to push the staff up, and it worked to get the staff off of the holder, but with his jump he lost his balance on the chair and toppled over, not seeing the staff fall to the ground but hearing it shatter on the floor.  What did startle him though was the unfamiliar voice he heard next.

“Guards!!  There’s a burglar on the loose!!”  Ghost got up as fast as he could, seeing some sort of elven person waving guards over to him and shouting for help.  Ghost didn’t have the time to criticize the librarian for finally showing up at such a bad time as he tried to use the previous teleporting sigil on the ground but, for some reason, it wasn’t working.  He didn’t have time to try jumping over the balcony because a fully armored guard wrestled with him and got his hands behind his back easily, not even needing the help of the second guard as what was usually needed.

“Finally got you, urchin.  Your charges include five accounts of theft and impersonating a College official.  And look at that, no coin purse huh? Well I guess it’s off to the cells with you,  _ rat _ .”  The guard patronized him as he dragged Ghost along the floor, through the portal, and towards the door, Ghost squirming the whole way.  Not being able to think of any other possible solution, Ghost shouted.

“Hey, Asylum!!  I could really use some help here!!”  He called out desperately for the only person he could think that could help him.

“Oh?  So you have a compatriot of yours hiding around here as well?  A little cohort to your thieving schemes?” The guard suddenly changed direction to the way Ghost was yelling, right towards Asylum.  “So, do you know this man?” The guard was strong and tall enough to lift Ghost off the ground with one arm, like he was showing off some fresh catch to Asylum, who only casually looked up from his book.

“Can’t say I do, officer.”


	16. Regrouping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @slenderboobs I Owe You My Life for writing most of this chapter

Ghost paced around his cell, arms wrapped tight around him in attempt to bring some sort of comfort, as everything he had on him was taken away and he was forced to wear sackcloth rags as clothes instead of at least  _ his _ rags that were considerably more comfortable.  His heart was liable to beat out of his chest at any second and his hands were shaking and cold, blood not circulating properly.  He couldn’t tell if he had just gotten thrown in the cell or if it had already been years; he had never had the best sense of time.  His thoughts were flying a mile a minute.

    How long was he going to be here? Would he ever be able to go home? Why did he think grabbing that staff was a good idea?  _ Why did Asylum pretend not to know him? _

    That last question was probably what hurt the most at the moment. Even though Ghost would never admit it out loud, he had thought that they were starting to get along better, that maybe they didn’t totally hate each other-- but Ghost made one mistake (okay, a series of escalating mistakes,) and Asylum managed to look at him like he was nothing. Did Ghost finally push Asylum over the edge? He wouldn’t be surprised if he had.

    Asylum didn’t need to be such a jerk about it, though.  Honestly like, not even a hint of remorse or even recognition, not even skipping a beat like he was waiting to get rid of him.  How _ dare _ he???  Who the hell does he think he is??  ‘Ooo just because I’m a weak ass god that means I can do whatever I want oooooo’ what a bunch of shit.

    ….a bunch of shit that was his only shot at getting home.  Wow, he really messed up this time, didn’t he? Didn’t even know what he really did wrong, besides the shattering of what was probably a priceless artifact and the constant interrupting of Asylum’s good-willed research.  Yeah, that was probably it.  _ God _ he’s such a moron.  What if he never gets to see Toast again, for real this time?  Rotting in an prison cell in ancient times where the only person he knows cares about him is not only dimensions but  _ centuries _ away is no way to go.

    Ghost’s nervous energy had him shaking as he paced around incessantly, having made a path in the grime and dust on the floor as his mind raced.  Not having his hoodie on him really messed with him. There was a chair and a table with a pitcher of water on it, as well as a bedroll, but Ghost didn’t feel like  drowning hydrating himself or sitting down in any respect. Every solution he thought of came to a dead-end, seeing as how he didn’t have the expansive inventory here as had back home. He had nothing to work with.  Ghost feels completely alone, and he doesn’t like it.

  * [12:37 pm]



    Asylum just finished his third book, and he was glad the guard had believed him.  In jail Ghost couldn’t cause trouble, and most importantly he can’t bother him.

  * [1:57 pm]



    Asylum just finished his fourth book, and he was feeling a little bit of concern for Ghost’s overall well being on his own, even though it had only been a few hours.

  * [5:24 pm]



    Asylum had now finished his research, and was now feeling fairly remorseful about cold-shouldering Ghost as he had, but it was going to help both of them overall so Asylum was trying not to let it bother him too much, to mixed results.  Before the jailbreak could commence, however, he needed to regroup with his team to record the ritual he was repeating in his mind, and hopefully they could gather most of, if not all, of the materials needed for it. He got up and carried all of the books he took down, including the book of creatures Ghost had left him before, and placed them all on the librarian’s desk in two trips, a good time for how large the tomes were.  He threw the librarian a friendly hand wave as he left in a hurry, repeating the ritual ingredients and steps.  _ Unit representative of where the portal should lead, nirnroot, ectoplasm… _

* * *

 

    “So, let me get this straight,” Sari said slowly, “While you were researching, Ghost was poking around and attracted the attention of the  _ guards? _ ”

    “No one noticed anything until he  _ broke an artifact. _ ”  Asylum pointed out as he scrawled down what he learned.

    “Are  _ you  _ of all people  _ defending the guards?”   _ Mimi said incredulously.  Her arms were crossed, not that Asylum could see.

    “Of  _ course not,  _ I’m honestly offended you’d think such a thing.”  Asylum objected. “I’m just stating the facts. I’m not exactly thrilled about this development either, but it was either that or break my cover and not get any information so I could rescue him later.”

    “I  _ guess _ ,” Mimi said, though there was still disapproval in her voice.

    “You sound concerned, Mimi.”  Asylum shifted the conversation as he put the finishing touches on the instructions.

    “Of  _ course  _ I am! Have you  _ seen  _ Ghost?  He’s the epitome of ‘disaster gay’.  You and I both know what the jails are like; they’re rough for people  _ from  _ Tamriel, let alone an  _ entirely different realm.   _ He wouldn’t last a month.”   
“I know, I know!”  Asylum protested, finally looking up from his work.  “Which is why I’m going to break him out.” Mimi groaned, so Asylum rushed to cut her off.  “Hey, I’m experienced! I’m probably the best person for the job. I’ll go in, get Ghost, and get out.  No big deal.” Asylum’s companions were all looking at him dubiously, to which he raised his hands in concession.  “Tell you what. While I go to release the gremlin, you guys gather the materials I wrote down. If we’re not back by the time you guys are done, you can all show up as back-up.  Okay?” His friends went from looking at him skeptically to looking at each other questioningly. A beat of silence passed until finally Sari spoke.

    “That might work,” she started carefully, “still, I’m worried.  For the both of you.” Asylum grinned boyishly at her concern.

    “You have nothing to worry about.  I’m Asylum Weaver, Prince of Madness and pirate extraordinaire.  I got this.” Sari smiled and rolled her eyes. Mimi pointed at Asylum accusingly.

    “The way you said that.  He’s rubbing off on you.”

    “He is  _ not.   _ How dare you even  _ say  _ such a thing.”

    “Whatever you say, Weaver.”

    “Don’t you  _ ‘Weaver’ _ at me!”

    “I’ll  _ ‘Weaver’ _ at you all I want!”  Mimi retorted, and Asylum huffed, getting up from his desk and walking out as his friends laughed and joked around and about him.  Sari was able to slip out after him and catch up.

    “Are you completely sure you can do this?  You don’t want me to go with you?”

    “As much as I love having you around, this is a one person job.  And besides, if this goes wrong I don’t want you ending up jailed as well.  That’s like, the  _ last _ thing I want to happen.”  Asylum tried to speed up so Sari couldn’t continue to try to change his mind but Sari easily kept up with him due to her stature.

    “Not even just to stand outside and watch your back?  Because-” Sari was cut off by Asylum stopping and placing his hands on her shoulders.

    “I’ll be fine.  Promise. Even if I get caught there’s no way I’m going to die so you can always rush in and be my knight in,” he gestured to her beloved dress with one hand, “madworld finery armor.”  They both shared a chuckle at his lame joke.

    “Well, if you insist on it I guess I won’t harp on you anymore.”  Sari resigned, still caring about her husband but seeing that, as usual, his mind wasn’t going to be changed.  

    “Thank you!  I shouldn’t be long!”  Asylum hopped up and gave her a kiss on the cheek, then ran off to change into something more suitable to breaking someone out of prison.  Sari shook her head and smiled, walking back to his study to go take a closer look at what he wrote down. Hopefully it was able to be parsed, it  _ is _ the scribblings of a madman anyways.

* * *

 

    Asylum, for the first time in a long time, gathered together his regular adventuring gear.  He took both Umbra and a one-handed sword so he could use a shield if he needed to, a good helping of health potions and a few magika ones as well, a few bunches of grapes because they are a necessity to any adventure.  He also dug in his closet for a bit for clothes close to what Ghost wears, just in case they couldn’t get to the confiscated ‘evidence’ chest during the escape, because Gods know those burlap sacks prisoners were given to wear weren’t comfortable in the slightest.

    He gave some parting instructions to his guard, mostly about cleaning up the castle while he was out because he had almost forgotten how much of slobs his friends are, and headed out the door once again, hopefully to return with a small ratlike man in tow.


	17. Bungus 2: Electric Boogaloo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again I owe my life to Boobie because I don't write Ghost's character well on my own

    The full moon lit up the streets of the Imperial City as Asylum walked along towards the palace, much calmer and energized now that he didn’t have to pretend to be a normal person.  If he remembered right, which, due to how much time it’s been since he was in the jails here he might not have, there should be a sewer grate behind one of the shops that connects to the same passages used for the emergency escape route for the castle that hopefully isn’t boarded up.  But if it is boarded up there’s no way for him to get by on this side, forcing him to walk all the way back and through the castle and through the main entrance. He didn’t want to waste time deciding, or at all if possible, so through the main entrance it is.

    All citizens had access basically right up to the door of the jails, which is a really bad decision on their part.  The guards, of course, still gave nasty looks and Asylum could hear the insults they were muttering about him behind his back but, as usual, he did his best to pay them no mind.  Wasn’t worth getting in a fight quite yet. Surprisingly enough nobody arrested him on the spot for little reason which again was fairly usual for him. He entered into the castle though the completely legal front door, turning right and steeling himself for the assault that was most certainly going to happen.  He equipped his ice storm spell in one hand but held off on preparing it for when the fight started, taking note of every guard he saw and where they were posted, as well as noting all the guard towers. If he were able to successfully get Ghost out the best escape route would definitely be the one that the emperor used roughly 200 years ago.

    The jail door was in sight now, and flanked by two guards, a lot more guarded than Asylum remembered it used to be, and he couldn’t tell if it was because of the recent lockup or that was just how the guards are stationed now, but that point didn’t matter too much in the current moment.  Asylum calmly, non-threateningly as he could be, walked up to the guards and attempted to walk through the door, but was stopped by one of the guards sticking his arm out in front of him, tripping him up and almost making him fall over. Both of the guards snickered.

    “Where do  _ you _ think you’re going?  Jail doesn’t take visitors unless you were going to jail yourself for us.”  Asylum sighed wearily at this expected result.

    “Shame you stopped me, really.”  The guards didn’t have much time to react before Asylum has unsheathed his shortsword and had already dispatched one of the guards.  The other guard yelled for backup before he got a sword in his throat, much to Asylum’s chagrin, now he had to be faster than he had planned in all likelihood, and he doesn’t like when things don’t stick to his plan that he kept in his head and has told absolutely no one the details of.

    Asylum kicked down the door to the prison, not bothering to open it like a regular person would do, and started running to the left side of the prison’s hall, looking in all the cells as he ran to find Ghost.  Metal boots clanked heavily on the stone floor above, indicating reinforcements were indeed coming, meaning Asylum really had to rush. Reaching the left side of the hall and not seeing his target, he turned around to rush to the other end, seeing a guard burst into the room.  Asylum charged his spell as he rushed forwards, casting it right as he was right next to the guard, freezing him instantly and sending a swirl of cold down the hall, making a yelp ring out from one of the cells.

    “ _ Funny, _ **_I DIDN'T ASK TO BECOME A HUMAN ICICLE THANK YOU VERY MUCH._ ** ”

    “Ghost!”  Asylum recognised the voice instantly, shoving the guard to the ground and running down the hall, skidding to a stop in front of the cell Ghost was in.

    “Asylum?  What the hell are you doing  _ here _ ?”  Ghost was very confused in addition to being very cold, neither state was particularly good to be in.

    “This is a jailbreak, I’m getting you out of there!”  Asylum dug around in his pocket for his sonic screwdriver as even more clanking of armor could be heard echoing into the jail, which he paid no mind to.

    That was probably his first mistake, as more guards poured in behind him while he activated the sonic screwdriver. He swore under his breath while he turned and once again wielded his sword. Ghost, in the meantime, had pressed himself against the stone wall opposite the cell gate, deciding that letting Asylum do his thing was probably the best idea.

    Asylum fought off the guards one by one, getting sliced occasionally but otherwise successfully holding his position.  There are a lot more guards here than really necessary though, he thought as another one bit the dust. They should also sweep more, this place might as well have a dirt floor instead of a stone one.  Unfortunate that the dirt didn’t soften any of the noise of the armor clanking around, he could barely hear himself think as he fired Blizzard spells and swung his sword at the guards remaining. Asylum thought he heard Jordan’s, no, Ghost’s, voice through the noise and turned his head to look at Ghost in his cell, who was gesturing frantically to something behind him.  Before he could turn around, someone locked his arms in place, forcing them behind his back and wrestling the sword out of his hand.

* * *

 

    The battle Ghost witnessed ended quickly.  The guards in front of Asylum backed up and Asylum himself was pressed to the ground while the guard that caught him yelled something about trespassing, attempted jailbreak and murder.  Most of the guards went with the one as they carted Asylum off, two staying behind to drag the bodies of guards away. Ghost’s thoughts and emotions are a tornado. This world was one with permadeath.  Asylum had killed multiple people  _ permanently  _  in order to try and break him out of jail.  He could have helped Asylum avoid capture better.  Now there was no hope of escape. He’s going to rot here forever.

    Ghost’s thoughts continued in a spiral like that, unaware that the door was open and he could run for it until a guard came over and locked it again.  He then began to beat himself up over missing that opportunity. He was so much in his own head that he didn’t notice when Asylum got walked out in similar prison clothes to the ones Ghost’s wearing and was shoved in the cell across the hall from him, although his hands were still cuffed and the guards chained one of his feet to the floor.

    Ghost blinked in a vain attempt to focus.  “...Asylum?” he said tentatively. He heard Asylum take a deep breath.

    “Yeah?”

    “...what the hell just happened?”  He hated how small his voice sounded; his familiar bossy, take-charge tone was long gone, replaced by uncertainty and anxiety.

    “Did you not hear the ‘jailbreak’ part?”  Asylum responded. He sounded surprisingly calm for someone who had been engaged in combat not twenty minutes prior.

    “Well,  _ yeah,  _ but…”  Frustration clashed with nervousness in Ghost’s mind, and he trailed off in favor of sighing and rubbing his temples.  A beat of silence passed as Ghost tried to find where to start. “ _ Why _ ?” he finally managed.

    “... I don’t follow.”

    “Why risk yourself like that? For  _ me? _ ”

    Asylum scoffed, much to Ghost’s surprise, “You act like it’s some big sacrifice.”

    “You’re in jail with injuries that would need stitches in a dimension where healing potions don’t exist.  That seems like a big deal to me.” There’s that familiar snark.

    “This isn’t the first time I’ve been behind bars.  And as for your question…” Asylum paused as he considered his response and then continued, “You think I put up with you for all this time, let you into my house, and broke into the Library just to throw it all away?  To  _ Imperial Guards,  _ of all people?  Nah, not likely, gremlin.   I’m not letting you get off that easy.  You’re getting out of here, whether the cops like it or not.”

    Ghost blushed for a moment before that cold pit settled in his gut again.  “That’s nice and all, except for the  _ tiny problem  _ that you put yourself in the same predicament as me.”  _ and I’m stuck here for who knows how long, in prison, in a dimension where it’s still medieval times,  _ he finished the thought in his head.

    “Oh, you know,” Ghost heard chains clink slightly as Asylum waved a hand nonchalantly, presumably.

    Ghost furrowed his brow at that.  “Uh, I don’t, actually.”

    Asylum looked at him and jerked his head toward the thick wooden door closing their hallway off, behind which there was likely a slew of guards.  “You have little faith,” was the only explanation given.

    Ghost huffed and finally sat on the stone floor, his back propped up against the bars.  “You’re really weird, you know that?”

    “So I’ve been told.” Asylum responded dryly.

    Ghost had already talked enough about his feelings, but he wasn’t unaware that merely talking to Asylum had dispelled at least some of his anxieties.  As for the rest of his problems… he’d agonize over them to himself. Gods knew he didn’t have anything better to do.


	18. Girls' Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love these girls so much I should make a fic with just them at some point

_ Shortly after Asylum’s departure _

    “Asylum’s handwriting could really use some work.”  Lena held the paper closer to her eyes and squinted at it, trying to parse what Asylum had written there.

    “He was in a rush, cut him a  _ little _ slack.”  Sari defended her husband in his absence.

    “Yeah, okay lovergirl.”  Mimi tightened her sword belt as she got ready for what might be a small adventure of their own.

    “His handwriting isn’t that bad!”  Sari snatched the list from Lena’s hand and tried to read it herself.  “.....oh.”

    “I WAS RIGHT!  HE HAS HORRIBLE WRITING!”

    “He does not!  See, I can write out another list for you guys if you’re going to be so rude about it.”  Sari slapped the paper down on the desk and pulled out a fresh sheet from the drawer right under the top of the desk, took the quill, dipped it into the inkwell, and started carefully recreating what she reads on the paper.

    “You really defend him to the last don’t you.”  Mimi shook her head. Admirable, sure, but highly unnecessary of her in Mimi’s eyes.

    “Well somebody has to.”  Sari didn’t look up from her transcription.  A moment of silence passed, absent of the witty retorts that were commonplace in their friend group.

    “Honestly that’s so straight and sweet I would feel bad to throw an insult after such a thing.”  Sari, upon hearing this, paused in her writing.

    “I am...not sure if that is a compliment or an insult.”

    “The latter, I think,” Mimi said.  This only garnered a head-shake from Sari as she continued her work.  His friends were only slightly less weird than Asylum himself, it seemed.  Mimi, however, seemed to have moved on to another thought. “Looks like you’re almost done already,” she observed.

    “Well, yes, it isn’t a particularly long list.  Five items.” Sari waved a hand over the paper, fanning it so the ink would dry faster and not smudge while folded up in someone’s pocket, as was likely to happen.  Lena, not wanting to wait, craned her neck around Sari and tried to read the list.

    “Doesn’t look too hard of a list.  Some plants, some stuff that guy needs to sacrifice from his personal belongings, a little bit of blood,-”

    “It does NOT call for blood!”  Sari interjected, pushing Lena away from the table, the latter giggling at her own joke.  “You are completely twisted, do you know that?” Mimi gave Sari a deadpan look as Lena got up from the floor.

    “Sar, you married the Prince of Madness.”

    “Yes but she was like this  _ way before _ he even stepped foot through that gate!”

    “...that’s a good point.”  Mimi nodded in agreement.

    “Hey!  I thought you were my sister!  You’re supposed to have my back!”  Lena accused her sister, waving a hand at her in similar fashion.  Mimi just shrugged.

    “Wars have casualties.”

    “Wow, thanks.”  Lena glared.

    “No problem.”  Mimi’s face filled with mischief as she heckled her sibling, as siblings do, which Lena returned by jumping up, putting one arm around Mimi’s shoulders and messing her hair up with her free hand.  Mimi elbowed her twin in the gut, making her torso tense up and, with the change in center-of-gravity, they both fell to the ground. They didn’t stop there though, no no, they started wrestling right there on the floor of the study, blocking the only exit.  Sari sighed and got up, the only way she could get out is if she broke up the fight. With the minimal effort that comes with skill and practice, she was able to grab both of the twins by the collars of their shirts, holding them up and as far from each other as she could manage so that they couldn’t continue to fight.  She dropped them both down on their feet unceremoniously and walked through the doorway before they could start throwing down again. She turned to face them with arms crossed.

    “I hope I don’t have to carry you both out of the castle.”

    “ _ No, mom. _ ”  The twins’ response was synchronized, a chorus of sarcasm, if you will.  Sari continued to look and be unimpressed.

    “Come on, we have to be quick because something tells me Asylum is going to be doing something very stupid very soon.”

    “So...he’s being himself?”

    “Well it isn’t like he can be anyone else.”

    The twins snickered as they gathered their gear and got ready to head out. Sari sighed and slung her warhammer onto her back, having a feeling she’d need it.  “Alright, I have the list. Let’s go,” and with that, Sari, Mimi, and Lena set off as the sun gradually sank from view.

* * *

 

_ Approximately one hour later _

The trio was now assembled in a town square, in the shade of a building. Given the hour, not many people were out, but they had other things on their mind that had higher priority than “be natural”.

Mimi sighed and rolled her neck.  “So, what do we have so far?” she asked Sari.

Sari consulted her inventory.  “We have two of the three needed alchemy ingredients.”

“That’s  _ it? _ ” 

“We haven’t even been out that long!  Honestly, I think we’re making good progress.”

“I guess you’re right.  Still, we should keep going.  I wanna be able to tell Asylum we finished our job before he got back!”  Mimi said that last part with a grin clear on her face.

“Well then, let’s go!  The next town over has an herb shop; we’ll probably find what we need there if not here,” and once again, Sari led the way, the twins following closely behind.

The sounds of their boots hitting the cobbled sidewalk were the only thing that could be heard throughout the city.  They all looked at each building they passed, looking for signs that potentially indicated a general goods store, if not an apothecary or herbalist’s shop.  After following the path up a bit, a sign came in to view, reading “Best Goods and Guarantees”, at the sight they all sped up to reach the door of the establishment.  Mimi, having gotten there first, knocked on the door and received no answer. Mimi then stepped back from the door and Sari’s warhammer collided with the lock on the door, shattering it and allowing their entrance.  The girls all flooded in and looked around the store for what they needed, which in this case was a bowl, bottle?, of ectoplasm and a handful of cotton flower seeds.

“Hey guys look at this.”  Mimi and Sari looked up from their shelf searching to see Lena wearing a mask reminiscent of a vampire.  “Bleh bleh bleh I’m Asylum and I’m going to get arrested every time I feed because I’m a thief that can’t sneak!”  Mimi immediately burst out laughing, as did Lena. Sari rolled her eyes and continued rifling through the baskets on the shelf, stifling her laughter.

“Come on guys, time limit here.”  She reminded the twins. Lena took the mask off and set it down on the counter.

“Fine, fine, party pooper.”  Lena hopped over the counter and dropped down, looking under the countertop for anything of use.

“Hey, I found ectoplasm!”  Mimi waved around a large bottle with a translucent goop in it, causing the others to cheer.

    “Alright!  Just need some nirnroot and one of those Welkynd stones and we’re good to go!”  Sari pulled out the list from one of her dress pockets and rubbed out “ectoplasm” with a piece of charcoal.

    “Damn, forgot we needed one of those.  Wonder which Ayleid ruin hasn’t been picked clean of em yet.”  Lena mused, having gotten up and now leaning against the counter.  Sari walked over and took out her coinpurse, counting out how many septims it would be to replace the lock she bashed in as well as paying for the ectoplasm.  “You do know we can just leave  _ without _ paying right?  Nobody’s here to see us and nobody can stop us otherwise.”

    “But I feel bad.”  Sari dumped out the amount of coin needed onto the counter and left a little note apologizing.  “Speaking of which, we should probably go before anyone sees us.”

    “Yeah sounds like a solid plan.”  Mimi tucked the bottle of ectoplasm into her bag and slung it back over her shoulder, then headed out the door, Sari and Lena following.  They still had a bit of a journey ahead of them, especially if she wants to be done before Asylum returns home, hopefully with Ghost in tow.

* * *

 

    _Roughly a day later  
_

    A loud clamor echoed around the main hall as Lena emptied her pack right on the table by overturning it and having the contents fall out.

    “Lena can you  _ please _ be more careful with that!  Welkynd stones are incredibly rare these days!”  Sari chastised. Lena turned her head and looked Sari directly in the eyes.

    “No.”  She said, with force behind her voice.  To this Sari only shook her head and walked away, leaving Mimi to deal with her considerably rowdier twin, and walked up to one of the guards on patrol around the castle, who stopped as her approach was noticed.

    “Has Asylum returned yet?”

    “No, my Lady.”  The purple hued guard answered promptly.

    “How long have we been gone?”

    “Two days, my Lady.”

    “Two days…” Sari muttered, “very well, continue your patrol.”  The guard walked off as Sari’s worry for her husband’s well being multiplied rapidly.  She turned around and yelled. “Don’t get comfortable, girls! We’re needed for backup!”


	19. Take Two: This Time With Backup

    By the dark of the night, the three warriors rushed through the streets of the Imperial City, fully equipped with armor and weapons and potions, beelining it for the palace.  Mimi still somehow found the time to make comments, though.

    “I can’t believe he got himself in jail _again_.  We have to make a betting pool or something, I call he gets arrested every two months, twenty septims.”

    “Can we not bet on how frequently my husband gets imprisoned?”

    “Well _you_ don’t have to bet.”  Mimi supplied, making Sari roll her eyes and block the twins from her periphery with her helmet.

    “We have much more important things to be focusing on.”

    “Yeah!  Like a good ol murder spree!”  Lena commented, eerily happy with the prospect.

    “No you damn lunatic we’re only going to kill the people that get in our way, nobody else.”  Mimi shot down her twin before she got carried away.

    “Aw man, okay.”  Lena pouted but continued to keep up with the others.

    The group reached the castle and, surprisingly, the guards at the front paid no mind to them.  Most likely because they hadn’t drawn their weapons yet. Once they got inside, however, they took out their weapons and continued on towards the prisons, of which the location they had memorized by this point due to Asylum’s Perfectly Pristine reputation.  They approached the door to the jail and one of the guards, recognizing the warrior women from tales of yore, threw his helmet on the ground.

    “You know what, fine.  I’m not paid enough for this anyways.”  He took off his scabbard and threw that on the ground as well, and stormed off.

    “That’s respectable, have a nice day!”  Sari smiled at the now-former guard as he stormed past them, Mimi having to stick out an arm to keep her twin from going after him anyways.  Sari looked at the guard remaining, who had pulled their sword out. “Are you going to surrender as well?”

    “I’ll never surrender you dirty o-augh!”  Lena slashed the guard across the gut before they could finish, and they collapsed to the ground.  Lena looked back up at her twin, unnerving smile on her face and umbral glint in her eyes as she lifted her sword back up to a ready position.

    “I’ll bash the locks and chains while you go find the confiscated items room and she does a lot of the guard fighting?”  Sari suggested to Mimi, the ‘she’ referring to Lena.

    “Sounds good.  Don’t forget that you need to get Ghost as well.”

    “I didn’t, don’t worry.”  They all filed in through the door, Mimi immediately disappearing around the bend to the guards’ room or whatever it’s called, Lena running into the guard tower to slaughter some more distract the guards so that Sari could do the, you know, _jailbreaking_ part of the jailbreak.

    Sari set off down the halls purposefully, her hammer at the ready.  Somehow she moved steadily, as if she were familiar with the place. _Maybe that’s what marriage does to you_ , she mused.   _Makes it easier to find your troublemaking spouse._ Her gut simply told her where to go, navigating the maze-like halls with ease.

    Eventually Sari halted in front of a nondescript wooden door, no different from the other ones she encountered.  Still… she had a feeling. She hefted her hammer and swung sideways, smashing the knob clear through the other side.  With nothing to hold the door in place, it creaked open, and Sari stepped through the threshold.

    Behind the door was another wing, shorter than the main halls.  There were no more than twenty cells, which made her task easier.  She looked in each cell until she came upon Asylum.

    Sari was definitely not expecting to see her husband so beat up when she found his cell, one might even say he was mortally wounded if they were unaware of his immortality.  As she came into view, he lifted himself off of his mat a little bit and waved, clearly lacking in the energy that he usually had. Somehow he managed a smile.

    “Hi.”

    “Hi,” Sari replied.  Again, a sideways blow obliterated the lock with a loud clang, the metal snapping and warping under the force.  She stepped into the cell without hesitation, “brace yourself,” she warned her husband, and brought her hammer down on the chain keeping Asylum tethered to the floor, the impact indenting and cracking the stone.

    “This...would be the part where I hug you but my hands are kind of still bound.”  The chain linking his hands together was too short for Sari to break, so that would have to be remedied later, perhaps when one of the twins happens by with a sword.

    “Well I still have _my_ arms, don’t I?”  Sari affixed her hammer to her back and picked Asylum up, embracing him and being mindful of his wounds.  Asylum, unable to hug her back in any fashion, could only lean into the hug.

    “We still have someone else to save.”  Asylum said, not moving.

    “You say ‘we’ like you actually accomplished something here.”  Sari chuckled a little bit at his insistence that he’s being helpful.

    "I tried, okay?”

    “Yes, you did.”  Sari kissed him on his forehead.  “So where is Ghost?”

    “The cell across.”  Asylum gestured to the cell across from where he was, which was suspiciously quiet for supposedly having that man trapped inside.

    “Can you stand on your own?”

    “Probably.”  Sari gently placed Asylum down on his feet, and he seemed stable enough that she backed away a small bit, having a sneaking suspicion he’d fall.  Asylum tried to take a step, but as soon as he lifted his leg the slightest bit he collapsed into Sari’s expectant arms. “Probably not.” He concluded, voice muffled against Sari’s fur armor.

    “Uh-huh,” Sari said wryly, “tell you what, you stay seated while I sort out Ghost, okay?”

    “Understood.” Asylum said as Sari carefully propped him up against the wall of the hallway.

    She then turned and looked into the other cell.  “Ghost?” Ghost looked back at her, but Sari wasn’t quite sure he saw.  His eyes looked distant and he’s said not a word, both ran contrary to what she knew about him.  She looked at Asylum in confusion.

    “He’s listening he’s just...having a rough time of it.”  He explained.

    “Ah.”  Sari calculated that Ghost was far enough from the door to not get hit by any potential shrapnel, so in she bashed the lock to the cell, sending it soaring clear to the other side of the cell Ghost was in.  Ghost jumped, the sound of the lock shattering seemed to be sharp enough to break Ghost out of his haze, at least somewhat.

    “Sari? You’re… here,” he said, his usually sarcastic tone nowhere to be heard.

    “Yes, I am, which is something I’d like remedy as soon as possible.  Come on, we have to go,” she urged. Ghost poked his head out, cast a suspicious look up and down the hall, and cautiously stepped out as Sari knelt and carefully scooped up Asylum.  Ghost wordlessly propped the wooden door open so Sari could keep hold of her perforated husband and still maintain her brisk pace.

    “I sent Mimi to retrieve your belongings and Lena to keep the guards occupied.  We’re going to meet up with them at about the halfway mark so we can all leave as a group, hopefully,”  Sari outlined their premeditated plan to include the escapees in the loop.

    “Sounds good,” Asylum said, his voice muffled from resting his head against Sari’s chest.

    “So, better than your plan?” she asked teasingly, not once breaking stride.

    “Hey. It sounded good at the time,” he defended himself.  Still, he couldn’t fight off the sheepish grin spreading on his face.

    Ghost, meanwhile, was right behind Sari, keeping pace but not saying anything.  Sari thought he seemed to be in a worse mental state than Asylum, despite his lack of readily visible injuries and lack of title that indicated inherent madness.  She honestly felt uneasy about that, but now wasn’t the time to bring it up. She rushed dutifully onwards, occasionally taking directional advice from Asylum as he knew the jails like the back of his bloodied hand.

    Turning a corner, Sari could hear the sounds of battle and, more importantly, the joyful shouts of Lena as she presumably killed more guards.  Sari was grateful she herself wasn’t an often recipient of Lena’s love of violence anymore, given that she was in the company of two people that really can’t defend themselves in the moment.  The twins, already grouped up, came into sight as Sari turned yet another corner, the hall littered with the corpses of the guards.

    “DAMN Asylum what happened to you?”  Mimi immediately commented on Asylum’s sorry state when she saw it.

    “Thanks.”  Sari felt Asylum bury his head closer into her chest, obviously a little ashamed that he failed so spectacularly.  Lena, noticing the others had finally approached, took the line of battle forwards into the hall they needed to go next, making it safer for them all to advance.  Sari made her way easily around the dead bodies, but Ghost was practically stuck, staring at the corpses like the concept of dead people not vanishing instantly was foreign and scary to him.

    “You need help?”  Mimi asked him, receiving only a distant glance before he continued to stare at the bodies.  She took this as a yes and worked her way over to Ghost, slinging him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes when she got close.

    “I’m _fine_.”  Ghost finally responded, clearly not fine as he watched Mimi step over all the dead people.

    “The fact that you aren’t resisting says otherwise.”  Mimi marched on, trying to close the distance between them and the rest of the group.  Ghost just huffed and let himself be carried; Mimi was stronger than he was and he’s become somewhat accustomed to other people taking him places.

    The sounds of fighting stopped, indicating that Lena had either killed the entire guard or the rest are too scared to try to stop her, both of which were very possible.  She turned and faced her friends with a grin. “So you guys found ‘em, huh? Good, I ran out of nearby guards to kill. Maybe we’ll find more on the way out?”

    “Lena,” Sari said warningly, “our goal here is to escape, not kill as many people as possible.”

    “ _Fine,_ ” she conceded, sheathing her bloodied sword, “I need to get this blade sharpened again anyways.”  Mimi shook her head at her sister’s antics, which were always a normal thing she had to deal with. Ghost, however, was not so nonchalant regarding the helmeted twin, in fact she freaked him out quite a bit.  Not like he’d ever admit as much. Mimi merely kept walking along with the others.

    Lena led the pack, so naturally she was the one to open the secret escape tunnel that led into some crypts below the city, with Asylum’s help of course.  The crypts themselves were probably the most dangerous thing underneath the city, with the old, crumbling support columns and sparse lighting. The only hostile creatures were rats and goblins, both of which would go down just by being kicked, so no weapons needed to be drawn as the women worked their way through the caves, carrying the troublemakers along as they forged ahead.


	20. A story in a cave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance, one of the paragraphs may appear to be further spaced than the others, there's a technical problem that I don't know how to fix

    After a long trek through the caves, and one backtrack to close the secret door behind them, the group came across a fairly large cave, inhabited by a handful of goblins, which Lena happily dispatched.  One of said goblins was tending to a roaring fire, which was perfect for the short rest they needed to get everything back in order, though perhaps it wasn’t the safest thing given the limited ventilation the cavern had.  Sari put Asylum down so his back was leaning against the cave wall and started digging in her inventory for a healing potion of adequate strength. Mimi, having noticed how cold Ghost felt, sat him down close to the fire, trying to be careful and not break him.  She took his hoodie from her pack and handed it to him, which he immediately snatched and put over his sack shirt, then proceeded to take off the sack shirt underneath his hoodie and throw it away off of a small cliff that was within range. Lena couldn’t care less about sitting around, and was poking some of the dead bodies with sticks she found.

    “Alright, found one,” Sari pulled a red bottle out of her inventory and offered it to Asylum, “need me to open it for you or can you do it?”

    “It’s my legs that are weak.”  Asylum mumbled bitterly, swiping the bottle from her hands.

    “Okay you little mudcrab.”  Asylum blushed and averted his eyes, popping the cork off of the bottle and chugging the potion down.  Ghost watched as all of Asylum’s wounds close up seemingly on their own, no glow or anything, some of the wounds leaving scars behind to add to the veritable collection Asylum already had.  

    Sari caught him looking.  “Do you need one?” she asked, holding up a slightly weaker potion.

  
“I’m good.” Ghost mumbled.  Mimi, however, had a better vantage point than Sari did, and abruptly grabbed his hand and pushed his sleeve up.

    “Really? These bruises all over you look like they could use attention.”

    Ghost blushed, surprised and somewhat ruffled.  “It’s no big deal. They’re just bruises.”

    “Yeah, but there’s  _ a lot.   _ Might as well take care of them now,” Mimi retorted.  She let go of Ghost and turned to face Sari, who tossed her the healing potion without being asked.

    Ghost huffed and finally took the potion, feeling the aches and pains that had set in over the course of the past few days fade away as he drank it.  The bruises the guards had so generously given him gave way to unmarred skin.

    “Better?” Mimi asked smugly.  Ghost only made a face at her and pulled his legs up to his chest.  Sari just shook her head at their antics.

    “It tastes like a flat cherry soda.”  Ghost said decidedly, having figured out the taste of a healing potion.  Everyone within earshot, which was the entire group except for Lena who seems to have dropped off the face of Nirn due to lack of fighting, gave Ghost a confused look.  “Oh come on, don’t tell me you don’t know what soda is!”

    “Ghost,”  Asylum leaned forward and tried to gesture with his hands, somehow having forgotten they were still bound at this point, “you’ve made it abundantly clear that everything is different where ever you came from.  Why are you so incredulous about this.”

    Ghost sighed, as if culture shock was the most difficult thing he’s been faced with in the past week.  “It’s, like, a drink… with bubbles. You guys at  _ least  _ know what cherries are, right?”

    “Assuming that word means the same to both of us, yes.”  Sari nodded, giving Ghost a dry look.

    “Okay, good.  So imagine a drink with bubbles that’s really sweet and tastes nothing like cherries,” he explained, as if what he said made any sense at all.

    “...what.”  Mimi deadpanned, not understanding about 90% of what Ghost had said.

    “Just… take my word for it,” Ghost said.  He decided to ignore Asylum’s eyeroll.

    “ _ Anyways _ Mimi I need you to break these chains with your sword.”  Asylum held out his hands towards Mimi, keeping them as far from the other as possible.  Mimi unsheathed her sword and walked over, slamming her sword down on the chain when she got close, shattering the iron links.  “Thanks.”

    “What would you do without me?” she responded with a wink.  Asylum only gave her a dry look and reclined back against the cavern wall, next to Sari.

    “Ohhh noooo, I don’t think I can get up just yet,” Asylum threw Sari an overly exaggerated glance of despair, “I think Sari’s going to have to carry me the rest of the way home…”

    Sari gave him a sideways glance and a sly grin, right before rising to her feet.  “Alright guys, we should get moving if we want to be home by morning,” and she proceeded to turn her back to Asylum as she gathered her belongings.

    “ _ Sariiii… _ ”  Asylum stretched a hand out dramatically towards her.

    “Huh.  I could have sworn someone spoke just then.”   Sari’s grin widened, but Asylum, from his angle, couldn’t see it.

    “ _ BAAAABEEE… _ ”  Asylum was louder this time, but it was too late to go back on the charade now.

    “There it is again!  Do you guys feel a draft or something?”

    Mimi was snickering. “I don’t hear anything; I think you’re imagining things, Sari,” she jibed as she gathered her gear.  Asylum’s pout looked ingrained in his face at this point, like at any moment tears would start streaming down his face. He just sat there as his friends got ready to go.

    Lena chose that moment to make her return. “We’re leaving? It’s about time.”

    “Well,  _ we _ are.  We had to leave Asylum behind, unfortunately,” Sari said.

    “Nuh- _ uh.”  _ Asylum huffed, finally getting to his feet.  Mimi gasped dramatically when he got up, putting a hand to her chest.

    “He hath risen!   _ From the dead! _ ”

    “There’s no escape from the Prince of Madness,” Asylum said smugly.  Everyone in the room rolled their eyes at him in near synchrony, hitting him harder than he would ever be willing to admit.

    Ghost watched them in silence, wishing he had some popcorn to eat along with the free entertainment.  Hey, someone could even make a Youtube series out of this if they wanted to. But on the older youtube where they aren’t shooting themselves in the foot.  Regardless, Ghost got up as well, and Mimi handed him his bag, with the strap still chewed up from when Kajsa attacked it almost a week ago now. Sari looked surprised when she saw the bag in such a state.

    “Do you need me to fix that for you when we get home?”  She offered, pointing to the bag.

    “Nah, it’s fine.”  Ghost slung the bag over his shoulder.

    “No, it’s not fine, it looks like it’s going to break.  I’m going to fix that for you.” Sari decided whether Ghost liked it or not, and if there was one thing that Ghost learned while he was trapped in this alternate dimension it was that everyone here did what they were going to do regardless of his wishes.  Unless he wanted to fight them, and he really didn’t fancy his odds fighting any of these crazy people, especially when a gunshot wound seemed to only be a minor thing, minus the fact that nobody knows what a gun is except for him.

    Lena was getting impatient and decided the best way to get the party moving again is not to remind them they need to get home, but to simply walk off loudly and have the others catch up with her.  This plan works well for her, because anyone that knows anything about Lena knows that she really shouldn’t be left alone near any sort of populated area. The rest of the group darted after her as she went deeper into the caves and eventually, Asylum remembered, the delightful sewers under the city.  Ghost, however, did not know that he would have to tromp through ancient sewers in the near future, so Asylum decided to test the waters, so to speak, as to how comfortable he would be with that. As soon as they caught up with Lena of course.

    “So...have you ever been in a sewer system before?”

    “...yes I have.  Where are you going with this?”  Ghost was immediately suspicious.

    “Ah, good!  We’re going to have to go through a sewer system to get out of here.  One that’s a bit of a maze.”

    “Oh great just what I was hoping for.”  Ghost deadpanned.

    “... you’re taking this development remarkably well.”

    “This isn’t my first time in a sewer system.”  Asylum halted and looked at Ghost as the latter kept walking.

    “...I don’t know why I’m surprised at that, honestly.”  He said, shaking his head and continuing after Ghost.


	21. Dawning Realization

    “You know, this place isn’t as bad as I was expecting.”  Ghost factually stated as the group stepped into the sewers for the first time in this adventure.  He was genuinely surprised at how well kept these sewers were, though it didn’t come to mind that the only ones he had been in were haunted and in disrepair.

    “...what kind of sewers do you have back in crazy land?”  Asylum squinted at Ghost for a moment before he hopped over to the other walkway while everyone else was reasonable and used the bridge.

    “The haunted kind, usually.”

    “Oh yeah!  You’re a ghost hunter or something right?”  Mimi laughed, “that is incredibly specific. Does where you live have a huge problem or something?”

    “I guess you could say that.”  Ghost wasn’t sure they’d understand exactly how he gets away with having a livable but incredibly specific job, given that everyone here seemed to be kind of an everyman person, jack-of-all-trades master of none kind of deal.

    “What he means is that he actually just says he hunts ghosts just so he can hang around them a lot without seeming weird.  He actually lives in a decrepit sewer system with a bunch of undead.” Everyone but Ghost laughed at Lena’s exaggeration, not knowing that she was closer to the truth than Ghost perhaps liked.  Of course he didn’t correct her, that would be giving information out on his personal life to them, and although he’s not as hostile towards them as he was before he certainly still didn’t want to tell them more stuff about him than he had to.

    “Like he’s some sort of raccoon or something.”  Asylum added.

    “That’s it!  Your nickname is Raccoon Man now!”  Sari finally found the perfect nickname for her to use for Ghost, and her mind wasn’t about to be changed on it.

    “I guess it’s better than the other ones you guys tried to give me.”  Ghost was resigned to his fate at this point, his opinion, again, had virtually no weight here so there’s not much use arguing.

* * *

 

    “Do I  _ really _ have to swim again?”  Ghost griped as the jailbroken and the breakers of jail stood just outside the gate to the sewers, overlooking Rumare Lake, which surrounded the Imperial City.

    “Unless you want to risk going over the city bridge, yes.”  Asylum curtly replied, looking for the closest opposite shore to cross over to.

    “What, can you not swim or something?”  Mimi quipped, which elicited a glare from Ghost.

    “What is with you people and thinking I can’t swim!   _ Yes  _ I can swim.  I’m just  _ tired. _ ” he answered.

    “You’re already tired?  Pfft,  _ weak, _ ” Mimi scoffed.

    Ghost opened his mouth to retort but Asylum cut him off before the two could really start to bicker in earnest.  “Look, swimming across the lake is the safest way back, okay? I’m not about to risk traversing a high-traffic route like the bridge.”

    Ghost closed his eyes and tilted his head heavenward in a long-suffering expression.  “ _ Fine. _ ”

    Asylum smirked and nudged Sari, “He whined this much the first time around, too.”

    “Really?”  Sari snickered.  “How did you withstand it?”

    “Barely.”  Asylum leaned on Sari, feigning exhaustion yet again, but more subtle this time.

    “I’m right here you know.”  Ghost pouted and angled his face to a more earthly level.

    “They’re being straight they couldn’t care about a single thing on Nirn right now.”  Mimi explained.

    “Oh, so kinda like how you act around that alchemist then?”  At Lena’s mention of her crush, Mimi started blushing profusely.  “What’s her name? Carmen?” Lena smiled wickedly at embarrassing her twin, who slapped her across the face and started yet another fight between the two.

    Ghost really wished his phone had enough charge to record all of this entertaining banter he’s been privy to, but he really needed to conserve it until he was able to charge it again with the potato battery back at the Isles.  Funny, he never thought he would miss that guest room with the handle that was probably still knocked in, or that kitchen with needlework proudly displayed on the walls with words in a language he couldn’t understand, or even that big troll that acted like a dog and a toddler at the same time.

    “GIRLS!”  Sari snapped at them, done with the het moment with her husband.  The twins paused and looked at her for a moment, and then kept wrestling with each other.  Sari sighed at having to break up another one of their fights, walked over and scruffed both of them like before.  It’s going to be one of those days, Sari can just feel it.

* * *

 

    It was the home stretch now, the portal back to the Isles lie right across the bay, and the group of crazy people sat on the bank, taking a break and enjoying the sunrise.  Well, most of them sat down, Lena was standing a little ways into the water and throwing rocks at fish and having a grand time, but everyone else sat down to admire the sunrise over Niben Bay.  Asylum took out his lute that he had on him somehow and strummed a soft tune as he sat on Sari’s lap, Sari’s arms wrapped around him under his arms as they watched the sun rise.

    “Are they always like this?”  Ghost asked Mimi as she took a sip from some sort of bottle, or possibly a flask of alcohol, Ghost didn’t know what whisky flasks looked like in medieval times.

    “You weren’t even here to overhear Asylum’s poetry.”

    “Asylum writes poetry???  What a  _ dork _ .”  Ghost smirked.  Now he had knowledge to use against Asylum should he ever need to.

    “ _ I know right _ ??  You haven’t even seen  _ half _ of how dorky he can get.”  Mimi agreed, taking another sip from what Ghost decided was a bottle.

    “Believe me I don’t want to.”

    “It’s actually pretty good if you can get past the sappiness.  I’m sure he could write something for you if you needed it.”

    Ghost scoffed and shook his head.  “Nah, I think I’m good. Poetry isn’t really either of our style,” he said, referring, of course, to Toast.

    “Really?  I would have never guessed.” Mimi teased.

    “Shut up.”

    “Make me you plucked chicken.”  Mimi dared, knowing Ghost couldn’t beat anyone she knew in a fight.

    “What the hell kinda insult is  _ that _ supposed to be.”

    “A creative one.  Want to hear regular swear words?  I know plenty.”

    “I doubt I could even understand you.”

    “Wanna bet,  _ asshole _ ?”  Mimi shot back with a wicked grin.

    “Hey, language.”  Asylum interjected from his perch on Sari’s lap.

    “He started it.”  Mimi said, immediately pointing at Ghost.

    “I did not!”  He protested, pointing at Mimi.  “She’s the one that started with the insults!”

    “You say that you didn’t insult us constantly when you first got here!”

    “Children.  I’m surrounded by children.”  Sari said softly, as if she had only now come to the realization that she chose to surround herself with these sorts of people.  She sighed as the two started bickering with each other, much like siblings often do.

    “Should I break up the fight?”  Asylum turned his neck to look at Sari as best he could.

    “You’re going to get booed off the stage before you even get up.”

    “Oh like people disliking me has ever stopped me before.”  Asylum put his lute to the side and got up, regardless of what anyone wished.

    “Hey!  I’m watching this, don’t break up the fight you square!”  Lena protested immediately, throwing a rock in Asylum’s direction but missing.  He simply looked at the fallen projectile, then to Lena, prompting a giggle from Sari.  Ghost and Mimi, however, were oblivious to the demonstration of Asylum’s quirky sense of humor, as Mimi was busy laughing and holding one of Ghost’s forearms as he tried to shove her away.  Asylum marched over and nudged Mimi with his foot.

    “Oi, you two.  Knock it off, the sun is almost up and you guys are fighting through it.”

    They both looked up at him while still in their defensive positions.  “I like Lena’s idea,” Mimi quipped. Asylum sighed when she whirled around and blocked a jab from Ghost.

    “Lena has a lot of ideas, and not many of them are good.”  Another rock soared over Mimi and Ghost’s heads and pegged Asylum in the shoulder, thumping harmlessly to the ground.  “Hey, I’m sorry but it’s true!” Grumbling, followed by the continuation of splooshing. Asylum shook his head and refocused his attention to the rowdy gays seated on the ground and tussling. “C’mon guys, at least save the fighting until the sun’s up, the point of stopping was to relax for a bit.”

    “You sound like an old man.”  Ghost barely managed to stop a swing from Mimi as he insulted Asylum, who gasped in shock at being called old.  He was about to fire back but Lena interrupted everyone with some news.

    “Hey guys look at this!”  Everyone looked over as Lena held up a slaughterfish with one hand for all to see, it was bleeding from its head and blood covered where Lena was gripping it.  “I caught a fish with my bare hands! Well, and a rock but bare hands!”

    “WHAT THE HELL KIND OF DEMON FISH IS THAT???”  Ghost exclaimed, scooting backwards away from the water.

    “The kind that fights back!”  The fish twitched in her hand and Lena flinched, gripping tighter.

    “Hey I’m kinda scared of your twin over there.”  Ghost whispered to Mimi, not exaggerating in the slightest.

    “Yeah she takes some getting used to.”  She whispered back, as if a person like Lena was only harmlessly odd.  This did not ease Ghost’s fear of Lena at all.

    “Lena put that back in the water before you get hurt.”  Asylum sounded like a tired and concerned mother trying to wrangle a gaggle of rowdy children.

    “You’re not my  _ mom _ .”  Lena shot back, walking closer to shore with her catch.

    “ _ You’re not my real mom _ .”  Ghost mumbled to himself, as he felt that he was the only one that could understand the joke.

    “You know what, I might as well be the team mom at this point.  Put the fish  _ back. _ ”  Asylum put one hand on his hip and pointed to the bay with the other, deciding to own the bossy mom look.

    “ _ Fine then. _ ”  Lena dropped the fish in the water and walked up onto dry land.  “You’re such a spoilsport.”

    “And  _ you _ are a bloodthirsty psychopath whose idea of fun is mass murder.”

    “Got me there.”  Lena shrugged, her hand dripping blood on her sister’s head in a way that might have been purposeful, nobody was really sure.

    “ _ And _ you’re bleeding!”  Mimi immediately reached up and grabbed Lena’s wrist, pulling her hand down and taking the rest of her twin down as well.  “You’ve got multiple slices here!” Mimi threw Lena’s hand down in a way that it hit her twin in the face, leaving a bloody handprint as she reached back to look through her bag for a clean rag and a weaker healing potion.

    Ghost took this opportunity to slowly move further from Lena and closer to Sari, who seemed to be the only reasonable person left at this point and was still sitting down, mourning the peace she almost had.

    “ _ How do you live with these people? _ ”  He whispered, clearly concerned about the people he’s found himself in the company of.  Sari only smiled softly, holding back a laugh.

    “You’re in the company of the prince of madness and his friends, you’re lucky you didn’t get stuck with anyone else.  Sympathy and compassion is hard to come by, especially in the company of daedra.”


	22. Setback

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the formatting is still messing up slightly and I don't know how to fix it OTL

    The gang finally got back to the castle, in timely manner as Asylum could just teleport all of them once they got through the portal.  Asylum kicked the front door to the castle open, as he had them designed to withstand so he can be dramatic if he so chooses with little consequence, and tossed his bag on the ground.

    “KAJSA!!  I’M HOME!!”  He shouted as everyone else filtered in behind him, cupping his hands around his mouth to be extra loud.  Immediately a loud thump could be heard from behind the door going to the left of the main hall, then the door handle jiggled a lot as Kajsa tried to open it.  Mimi went over to open the door for the troll, but before she even got halfway there he broke the door down, barreling full force to Asylum, jumping up onto him and knocking him onto the ground.  Asylum laughed as Kajsa hugged him and then jumped back up to go and greet everyone else.

    “Looks like someone missed us.” Mimi mused, straightening out after nearly being bowled over by a troll.

    “To say the least.” Asylum got up as Kajsa eagerly hopped onto his back legs so he could prop himself up on Sari’s thighs and receive her affections.

    “We missed you too, baby.” Sari crooned, affectionately ruffling his head.  After a moment enjoying his head being pat, Kajsa got down and went to greet the next closest person, which just so happened to be Ghost.  Since they were roughly the same height if Kajsa stood up straight, he reared up on his hind legs and wrapped his arms around Ghost’s shoulders in one of the tightest hugs Ghost had ever experienced.  It was so tight that Ghost couldn’t protest for fear of not being able to breathe again if he exhaled at all. After a moment that felt like a century to him, Asylum tapped Kajsa’s shoulder.

    “Get down kid, you’re crushing him.”  At his request, Kajsa released Ghost from his iron grip and instead made his way over to Mimi to get affection from her, Ghost taking a breath long overdue.  “You okay?” Asylum asked, concerned that Kajsa had actually hurt Ghost.

    “No, I’m fine.”  Ghost managed to eke out a reply between labored breaths.  As he straightened out and rubbed his back, Kajsa lumbered off in pursuit of Lena, who slipped away who-knows-where while the others were being barraged with affection.  “It is the _weirdest thing_ to get an actual spine-crushing hug from a dog with arms.”  He complained, making everyone around him giggle and laugh.

    “He’s a dog that can hug you back!”  The twins’ odd sense of humor shone through Mimi this time.

    “We should get him a doghouse.”  Sari chuckled, actually considering the idea while also finding it humorous.

    “Okay okay, back on task guys.”  Asylum took a look through the bag that was left on the throne towards the back of the room.  “This _is_ the bag of stuff you guys got, right?”

    “Yeah?  Something wrong?”  Mimi asked, getting a sinking feeling that she knew where this conversation was going.

    “You guys got...cotton flower seeds and a welkynd stone when I needed _s_ _acred lily seeds and a varla stone_.”

    “Oh...shoot.”  Sari just barely avoided using language not appropriate for an otherwise all-ages fic.

    “See!  I _told_ you he has awful handwriting!”  Mimi pointed accusingly at Sari.

    “Hey, I’m self taught give me a break!”  Asylum defended himself.

    Ghost decided that now was a good time to escape the room, so he inched his way to the right side of the hall and slipped through the doors into another but more specialized hall, this one decorated with deep purples and blues compared to the one he just came from, which was purples and golds.  He recognized this hall as the one that he was dragged through when he first got here as one of the guards went to lock him up. He crossed the hall, passed the stairs down to the dungeon, and went through another door, finding himself in one of the more normal hallways that he very much hoped led to his room.  Turning to the right at the end of the hallway he saw...a large hallway with many identical doors. He knew that his room couldn’t be to the left, that door leads to the garden, so he had two options: open every door until he finds the guest room, or go back and ask for help. For some reason he found himself actually...wanting to be social and ask for help.

    Ghost turned around and went back the way he came, opening the door to find a full on fight between Mimi and Sari.  They both have their weapons out and blood’s spattered on the floor, and they were both yelling at each other while Asylum simply looked on helplessly from a distance.  Ghost halted in the doorway, taking in the perplexing scene with wide eyes.

    “Uh… should I… go?” he asked awkwardly, gesturing at the doorway he just walked through.

    Asylum opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by Mimi and Sari simultaneously barking “NO!”

    “We’re fine, Ghost,” Sari added tersely, not breaking her staredown with Mimi.

    Asylum sighed and ran a hand down the side of his face.  “Sari and Mimi were just having… a disagreement,” he said delicately.

    This didn’t seem to do anything to allay Ghost’s reaction.  “ _Sari_ and _Mimi_ having a disagreement?  With _weapons_?  That sounds more like Lena’s thing.”

    “It happens more than you’d think,” Asylum said wearily.  He took the opportunity of Ghost’s distraction to edge closer to the two women facing each other down.  “Can you guys _please_ put the weapons down?” he pleaded.  Mimi huffed and rolled her eyes, but she finally relented, sheathing her sword and giving Sari and expectant look.  The latter sighed and replaced the hammer on her back.

    “Thank you,” Asylum said in relief.  “Okay, so we’ve established that I have bad handwriting.”  Mimi snorted at his admission, but he continued as if he heard nothing.  “Now we can move on to actually _getting the correct ingredients_ instead of beating each other up.”

    “But beating each other up is fun.” Mimi said.  Sari gave her a weary look.

    “Mimi, this may come as a shock to you, but some people don’t like getting their faces beaten in,” Asylum deadpanned.

    “Can’t relate,” Mimi responded with a shrug.

    “This explains nothing,” Ghost interjected, looking only slightly less terrified.

    It suddenly hit Asylum that the whole reason the fight broke out in the first place was not only pertinent to Ghost, but also Not Great news, as well. “ _Weeeell_ ,” Asylum hedged, “we’ve hit a _slight_ hitch in our plan.”

    “What plan. I was _arrested_ before I was told a plan.”

    Asylum carefully ignored Sari’s pointed look and tried to find a way to break the news without giving Ghost an anxiety attack. “Well, while I was out saving your ass, the girls were supposed to get the materials in the recipe I wrote down.”

    “Which we did!” Mimi butted in.

    Asylum stared into the void for a moment at Mimi’s outburst before continuing. “There was a handwriting-related miscommunication, and they… got some items wrong.” he finished.

    Ghost was uncharacteristically silent for a beat; the seconds seemed to stretch into eternity, from Asylum’s perspective.

    “So, we need to go back out and get different stuff,” Ghost started.

    “...yes.”

    “But not _all_ different stuff!” Sari was quick to add. “We only got some things wrong.”

    Ghost took a deep breath. “How long? To go out, get the ingredients, and finally make this portal?”

    “No more than a day. Maybe two,” Asylum said with a dismissive hand wave.

    “Right.” Ghost said, his voice dripping with doubt.  He sighed and rubbed his temples. “This isn’t what I even came in here for,” he muttered.

    “Wait, what?” Asylum said, momentarily taken out of the tension of the room via his confusion.

    “Could it be?  Johnny Ghost? Here to _socialize_ ?  With us, the _laity_?” Mimi mocked, voice thick with exaggeration.

    Ghost just made a face at her.  “For as much as I love small talk,” he said sarcastically, “I came here because I have no clue where my room is.”  
    “ _Your_ room, huh?”  Asylum pointed out, a smirk dancing on his lips.

    Ghost shifted his stink eye from Mimi to Asylum. “It’s the room you _locked_ me into, so yeah, I think it’s mine now.” he retorted.

    “You never mentioned the changing hallways, did you?” Sari asked Asylum.

    Ghost overheard and groaned.  “Is there anything _else_ important I need to know?  That there’s actually no way to get back?  That I dreamed all of this, maybe?”

    “I thought getting your ass kicked was supposed to wake people up from dreams,” Mimi mumbled.  Sari giggled as Asylum nudged her.

    “No, you know everything now. I think.”  Asylum “reassured”. “Let me escort you, your royal highness.”

    Ghost dutifully trailed after Asylum as the latter left the room.  “You’re thinking of my boyfriend, actually.”

    “Wait.  Are you joking?”

    Ghost halted momentarily, eyes narrowing as he realized his mistake.  “... no. Well, not really. It’s… weird. So weird that I should just stop talking about it, in fact.”

    “Nope.  Now you _gotta_ explain,” Asylum said smugly.

    “No it’s like, really weird.  Hard to explain.”

    “And you think _this place_ ,” Asylum gestured around at the castle, or maybe the entire land, Ghost wasn’t sure, “isn’t weird and hard to explain?  Give it your best shot.”

    “Well my boyfriend is like, half royalty on his mom’s side but his parents weren’t like...official.”

    “Ah, a bastard then.  Makes sense how he ended up with someone like you then.”  Asylum said calmly as he walked along, unaware that he had said an insult.

    “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

    “What’s what supposed to mean?”


	23. The Shifting Castle

    Of course when  _ Asylum _ walked Ghost to his room it was found immediately.  Something about the castle listening to him or another crazy thing like that, he was too upset by recent events to fully listen to Asylum’s explanation.  It never really hit him before that this was a realm of madness with crazy people, before he just thought that it just meant that everything looked weird and that it was just Asylum that was odd but no it was  _ everyone _ , fighting at the drop of a hat, nobody blinking at a homicidal maniac’s antics, it was weird like his home but not in the way he was used to, no, no much different than that.  The kind of different that made him think he wasn’t going to get home again.

    The door closed behind Ghost and he flopped down on the bed, trying to wind down his nerves from all he had experienced in the past three days or so.  He even tried to take a nap in hopes to sort out his thoughts. Unfortunately, his metric ton of anxiety wasn’t having it in the slightest. He couldn’t lie still, even for just a second, afraid something was watching him, perhaps.  Or someone would break into the room to murder him at any moment and he would be practically defenseless. Every time he tried to close his eyes he saw the confines of his cell; the peaceful silence of the guest room reminded him of the suffocating emptiness of the jail.  Thoughts of isolation and mortality swirled together into a cocktail of nerves.

    Finally Ghost huffed and bolted upright, having had enough of trying and failing to relax.  He got up from the bed and walked over to the door, hesitating right before he put his hand on the doorknob.  Taking a deep breath, he opened the door, walking right past the practically inanimate guards and into the supposedly shifting halls of the castle.

    As soon as he turned the corner of the hall he regretted his decision, because when he went to look back at the hall he came from, it was different, he saw no golden skinned guards and no open door.  It was quite literally too late to turn back now, so all he could do now was wander, wander and hope he walks into someone that he isn’t deathly afraid of. At least walking around calmed his nerves a little.

    As Ghost wandered, he remembered that his situation was not unlike whoever went into Minos’s Labyrinth, complete with one mortally terrifying monster also wandering somewhere in the halls, the monster in this case being Lena instead of a bull person of course.  Though he wouldn’t put it past this crazy place to have bull people running around as well. Maybe there was some sort of magic string he was supposed to be using so he could get from place to place. He’ll have to look for one if he’s going to be staying here much longer.

    This is just great, he was already lost and he only walked down two hallways.  At this rate he would be lost beyond all hope of saving if he did this 10 times.  But, on the 6th time he walked down a hallway, he now saw stairs leading upwards instead of just another corner to turn.  Glad for the change in pace, he happily ascended the stairs. Those stairs seemed to take longer than regular stairs do to climb, but hey, it was a madness world, maybe flights of stairs were just taller for some inhumane reason.  All the doors he came to in the spiral staircase were locked with no way to open them unless Ghost wanted to pop his shoulder out of its socket throwing himself at them, so he continued on up.

    It has to have been at  _ least _ ten minutes by now, but these stairs just keep going up it seems like.  Ghost looked down the center railing and they went down infinitely as well it seemed.  Now he was  _ really _ stranded, he might as well sit down for a while and catch his breath.  Ghost sat on the stairs but that quickly turned into laying down, because of course  _ now _ his nerves let him sit down.

    He had no idea how long he was laying there, but eventually he heard footsteps coming down the steps.  He may have sighed on the outside but on the inside he was secretly ecstatic he wasn’t alone anymore.

    “So the beds just aren’t good enough for you?”  Ghost didn’t have to look at who was most undoubtedly standing just outside his field of view to know that it was Asylum that’s standing there.

    “Please I’ve been stuck on this staircase for over ten minutes.  No don’t  _ LAUGH _ I AM LEGITIMATELY STUCK IN THIS HELLSCAPE YOU CALL A CASTLE.”

    “I’m SORRY it’s just,” Asylum paused for a breath between his laughter and his explanation, “it’s been so long since this has happened to anybody that I actually forgot about how awful this place is if you aren’t family by everyone’s word yet.”  Asylum got a rein on his laughter while Ghost continued to pout at what he thought was Asylum making fun of him. “Why’re you here, anyways?”

    “It was too quiet in my room, so I left.  Couldn’t sleep.” Ghost, with great effort, got up to a sitting position on the stairs, still not looking at Asylum as he spoke.

    “Need me to sing you a lullaby or something?”  Asylum didn’t quite catch on that this was not exactly the best time to joke around concerning Ghost.

    Ghost shot Asylum a look.  “Not the time, dude.”

    Asylum sobered slightly.  “Something wrong?”

    Ghost flipped his hood up and crossed his arms.  “You know. Anxiety.” he said with a shrug.

    “Right,” Asylum said.  He understood, sure, but comforting people was a whole other ball of wax.  A moment of silence passed before he spoke again. “So you thought laying down on a staircase would help?”

    Ghost scoffed a little, which Asylum considered an accomplishment.  “No, I thought looking for you guys would help but the stairs got in the way.”  Ghost was too busy not looking at Asylum to notice his smirk returning at that response.

    “What, feeling social?”

    Ghost felt lucky that his hood was conveniently obscuring his blush.  “Hey, you made your friends hang out with you all night when you were a vampire!”

    “I didn’t  _ make  _ them do that!  It was their idea.”

    “You didn’t object to it, though.”

    Asylum huffed and rolled his eyes while Ghost finally looked at him just enough to give him a smug look. “Come on, raccoon,” Asylum finally said, latching onto Ghost’s sleeve and giving him an upward tug.

    “What are you doing.”  Ghost asked suspiciously.

    “You’re acting like I’m going to throw you down the staircase.  I’m taking you down stairs for breakfast, you awful little man.”

    Ghost heaved an exaggerated groan as he let Asylum pull him to his feet.  “I forgot about breakfast.”

    “You would,” Asylum said, with yet another eye roll.

    Asylum’s presence seemed to stabilize the castle somewhat, as it actually took a normal span of time to get to the first floor.  By the time the two returned to the kitchen Sari was working at the oven again, Lena and Mimi were sitting next to each other at the table sharpening their swords, and Kasja was staring hopefully at the countertop, probably waiting for stray food to fall off. 

    “Look who I found,” Asylum proclaimed.  Ghost crossed his arms again.

    “Was he doing crime?” Mimi asked without looking up.

    “Now that you mention it, using a staircase as a bed is probably illegal,” Asylum said thoughtfully.

    Mimi looked up at Ghost, who was, you guessed it, pouting.  “You  _ do  _ know you have a bed, right?”

    “It was too quiet.  Got bored,” he responded off-handedly, as if he hadn’t been on the verge of an anxiety attack.

    “Only you would be  _ too bored to sleep _ ,” Mimi said, shaking her head and returning to her work.

    “Hopefully you’re not too bored to eat,” Sari interjected, “breakfast is almost ready.”

    “Is it more tarts?”  Asylum asked, his gaze fixated on the stove behind her.

    “Maybe.”  She teased.

    “Don’t play with me like this.”  It was Asylum’s turn to pout now.

    Ghost took the opportunity their bantering provided to try and edge past Sari to where the food was.  Sari, however, was not to be fooled and swatted him away. “Wait your turn. Even Kasja is more patient than you.”

    Ghost skittered to the table where the twins were already seated.  “Maybe so.”

    Sari shook her head as she brought over a tray of food and tea.  “Heathens. You all are heathens.”

    “Got me there,” Asylum said as he immediately reached over to snatch a tart, still not minding the temperature.

    “Hey Sari, do ya think I can spear a tart with my sword?”  Mimi asked, a wicked grin on her face as she pointed said sword at the tray.

    “Don’t.”

    “Lame,” Lena said.  All the while, Asylum was frantically pouring himself a cup of tea to wash down the fresh tart he wolfed down.

    Ghost watched the controlled chaos as he nursed a cup of tea, not quite ready to actually eat.  As he suspected, the presence of the others somehow subdued his anxieties. He would never say as much out loud, no less so directly, but being around other people actually made him more comfortable, especially when said people knew who he was and actually cared somewhat.

    Ghost was broken from his reverie by Kasja resting his head on Ghost’s lap and giving him a pleading look.  “You really are a dog, aren’t you,” Ghost mused as he surreptitiously passed the troll one of his tarts. Kasja immediately took it in his mouth and lumbered over to Asylum so he could use him as furniture.

    Asylum glanced down at Kasja when he contentedly sprawled across Asylum’s feet to devour his prey.  “Where did you get that?” Ghost chose that moment to nonchalantly shove a tart into mouth to cover his smirk.  Lena, having seen the exchange, snickered, but stayed quiet about it, deciding that ratting him out wasn’t worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hee hoo I make touhou joke in the chapter title


	24. Overruled

“So, ready for another adventure or need some more rest?”  Asylum gathered all of the clear dishes and put them on the counter for him to clean later, or for one of the many people he has under his command to clean if he doesn’t have the time.

“Because the last one went _so well for me_.”  Ghost said dryly.

“Oh come on, it wasn’t a _total_ waste!  We only need two more things!”  Mimi took a short reprieve from spinning a dagger around in a circle on the table to reassure Ghost.

“Did you miss the part where I was in a jail for over 24 hours with _nothing_ to comfort me?”  Ghost retorted. Sari gave Asylum a pointed look and his face read sheepishness all over.

“24 hours ain’t that bad!  Unless you have some sort of pristine reputation to maintain which I highly doubt.”

“You have no right to speak on how bad jail is, you’ve spent cumulative _years_ there.” Sari interjected.  Ghost pointed at her in vindication.

“Besides, you’re forgetting I’m _not from here_ ,” Ghost reminded him, “you know what to expect.”

Asylum, who didn’t have a clever retort but didn’t want to surrender his point, just waved his hand dismissively.  “Hey, you’re not there anymore, so it’s fine. Live in the present. There’s _adventure_ in the present,” he said alluringly, as if he was giving a sales pitch.  Ghost just maintained his dubious look.

Mimi, however, seemed to feel differently, as she bounded in at the sound of bickering.  “Did someone say _adventure_?” she asked, a glimmer in her eye.

“Of the commercial variety, yes,” Asylum affirmed.

Ghost groaned and faced Mimi.  “I thought you were on my side.”

“I’m a rogue element,” Mimi said.  “I go where the shenanigans go. YO, LENA!” She turned around and yelled for her sister. “WE’RE GOING ON AN _ADVENTURE_!”

Asylum looked excited, Sari looked vaguely apologetic, and Ghost looked defeated as the gang got ready to depart.  Asylum gave Ghost a pat on the shoulder.

“Hey, it shouldn’t be a problem if you remember to behave this time.” Asylum said pointedly.

“I could say the same to you, Mr. _Repeat Offender_ ,” Ghost grumbled.

Sari saw fit to intervene in that moment to keep the bickering from growing.  “This is just a shopping trip. We go, we get a few things, and come back. Nothing illegal about that,” she explained.

“That’s quitter talk.” Lena quipped, having suddenly appeared.  Asylum snorted, not seeming to notice the fact that Ghost had responded to Lena’s appearance by scooting slightly behind him.

“And with that, let’s go.” Sari said wryly. 

* * *

“Are we there yet?”  Ghost whined, already tired of trekking across the countryside.  It wasn’t even particularly interesting as far as forested hills go, nothing magical or anything.  Just wolves on occasion. Nothing cool to catch on camera, and he brought his potato battery with him this time to make sure his phone never run out of charge.

“Do you _see_ any big columns of marble?”  Asylum was also tired, but only because this was the fifth time Ghost had asked a question along those lines.

“In my dreams, maybe,” Ghost replied.  Asylum shook his head and continued on as everyone trailed behind him.

“If it’s any consolation, we should be there soon.”  Asylum searched his map again, looking for the familiar symbol of a ruin hopefully next to where they are on the map.

“We won’t be able to get far into the ruins before sundown, we should probably set up camp for the night once we find it.”  Sari suggested.

“But sleeping’s _boring_.”  Protested Lena, unable to see the benefits of a good night’s sleep for whatever reason.

“Your definition of boring is ‘something isn’t dying in my field of view and I don’t like that’.”  Mimi shot back.

“Well my definition is right.”

“Yeah, and Asylum is socially competent.”  At Sari’s comment, Asylum looked up from his map and scowled.  Lena didn't get to argue that point, as she was too busy laughing at Asylum's reaction, only making him more upset.

“Rude.”  Asylum folded up the map and put it in his inventory.

“She's not _wrong_.”  Mimi added.

“That doesn't mean she's being nice.”  Asylum mumbled. A moment of comfortable silence passed before Lena shot off into the bushes off the trail, startling Ghost but not seeming to bother anybody else.  There was a quick, shrill screech and then Lena reappeared as quickly as she left, wiping the blood off her sword before she sheathed it.

“Ruin’s over that way,” she pointed behind her with her thumb, “safe to camp now.”

“Imp?”  Asylum asked.

“Yep.”

“An imp?  What, those demonic goblin things?” Ghost echoed in concern.

“Well, to be fair, goblins are a separate thing, but close enough,” Asylum explained.  Ghost hardly seemed reassured but decided pushing the point would be futile. Instead, he changed the topic.

“We’re gonna _camp_?”

“Well yeah, we don’t want you to pass out in the middle of the ruins,” Sari said, looking at him curiously.

“I’m not gonna _pass out_ ,” Ghost grumbled, crossing his arms. “I’ll be perfectly fine.”

“As far as we know you’re a regular person so yes, you’ll pass out from exhaustion if you don’t sleep soon.”

“I’m not _regular_!” Ghost protested, throwing his arms out to emphasize his indignation. Asylum snorted.

“You might be a freak, but you still need to sleep.  So we’ll set up camp now so when night falls you can go to bed right away,” he said.

“You can try, but that doesn’t mean I’ll actually _fall asleep_ ,” Ghost huffed.  Then he paused. “How are you even gonna set up camp, anyway? You don’t have the right supplies.”

“Think again, raccoon.”  Ghost turned to see Mimi standing smugly next to a fully-assembled tent, complete with sleeping bag.  Ghost looked at the tent, then back to Asylum, then back to the tent again.

“...how did you do that.”

“Oh, you know.”  Mimi waved her hand dismissively as she was now setting rocks in a circle for a fire pit.  Ghost pouted at never getting any information from anyone here and turned his head, seeing that Sari had pulled out stuff on her own, though it was just some vegetables and cured meat, much more reasonable stuff in comparison to an entire tent.

“Oh what, we going to have a nice little camping barbecue too?”  Bitterness was apparent in Ghost’s voice.

“...yes?”  Sari looked at Ghost, her face a mixture of confusion and concern.  “I'm making a quick beef stew, though it'll be more like a soup because I don't have any stock on hand.”  She quickly chopped all of the vegetables in the air with a sharp dagger and the chopped veggies fell onto a plate beside her, all the while Mimi placed stray bits of wood her and her sister found in the woods in the fire pit.  She diced the meat and put it in the pot, then she reached behind her and pulled out a big jug of water, pouring some of it in the pot and then drinking some directly from the jug before placing it on the ground. Asylum stared adoringly at her the entire time, not caring about the head shakes he garnered from the twins.  “Asylum could you light the fire please?” Sari asked, not looking up from her task of peeling the diced potatoes as she waited, snapping Asylum out of his reverie.

“Oh, yeah, sure.”  He made sure Ghost was far enough away from the blast zone, then threw a fireball into the kindling, igniting it near instantly.

Ghost didn’t say much over this period of time, though he _did_ record some of it on his phone, which he didn’t disconnect from the potato battery that was still going strong.  Seeing what are supposed to be the wackiest people act so... _normal_ , more normal than the people he knew back home acted, even, was definitely something he wanted to keep track of in case it became important later.

“What’s that thing?”  Mimi gestured to Ghost’s phone with a stick as she walked past him.  Asylum snickered as Ghost sighed.

“This...is a phone.  I use it to record what’s going on around me using lots of pictures, and it records sounds as well in synchrony with the pictures.”  He tried his best not to blow his top because they genuinely don’t know anything about anything relatively modern so he’s probably going to get questions like this more in the future.

“Like one of those picture tablets but it can fit a lot more photos and also makes sounds.”  Asylum translated for his friends to the best of his abilities.

“Oh, that’s pretty cool then!”  Mimi dropped the fuel she was carrying and took a closer look at the phone, which Ghost pulled away from her defensively.

“Nuh-uh, I am _not_ letting any of you touch my phone.  No way.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s basically one of the last pieces of modern times I have left, that’s why not!”

“Coward.”

Sari saw Ghost puff up with indignation and decided to intervene before Mimi could beat him up.  “Dinner’s almost up,” she announced, stirring the boiling contents of a pot Ghost hadn’t noticed was set up, “rowdy kids don’t get fed,” she added.

“Joke’s on you, I don’t eat.” Ghost said smugly.

“That’s because you’ve never had Sari’s stew,” Asylum quipped, gently shoving down on Ghost’s shoulders so he’d sit down, “if you don’t try it we’ll leave you here.” he added.  Sari giggled without looking up from her task. Ghost pouted and sat down, deciding it wasn’t worth the effort to fight back at that particular moment.

“Alright you hooligans, dinnertime.” Sari announced, ladling stew into bowls for each of them.  “We don’t want Ghost to go to bed on an empty stomach, do we?” she added, a sly grin on her face.  Ghost made a face at her and accepted the bowl as the others settled down around him.


	25. Camping

    The moon’s light shone through the leaves of the forest as the smoke wafted between them, stars barely still shining but all could tell they were still there.  Ghost has long since been shooed into the tent, yet he could still not find sleep. He scrolled through his phone as he sat on the hide bedroll, editing down videos and sending the cropped videos to the SD card Toast had gotten for his phone since he used it so much, wondering just how he would explain the kinds of people he encountered when he got home.   _ If _ he got home, a horrid part of his brain chimed in.

    “You better be researching how to cast a slumber spell in there.”  Asylum’s now familiar voice made its way through the leather tent.

    “Yeah, sure, totally.”  Ghost dismissively waved his hand, though he doubted the light on his phone was strong enough to make his shadow appear on the other side on the tent.  He figured that Asylum knew he was lying through his teeth but the chance he might do something about that seemed minimal to Ghost. Unfortunately enough for him and his wishes, one of the shadows he could see dancing through the side of the tent appeared to get up, and got closer.

    “Really?  I don’t think that phone of yours has magical spell tomes within it.”  Asylum opened one of the flaps to the tent and peered inside.

    “Can’t you just leave me alone.”  Ghost groaned.

    “Look, I’m being the nice one here.  Would you rather Lena to, I dunno, knock you out with the pommel of her sword?”

    “What is it with her and gratuitous violence?”

    “I honestly have no idea and I’ve honestly stopped caring at this point but that’s beside the current matter; go to sleep.”  Ghost’s gaze flicked up from the phone’s screen to Asylum as he chided him.

    “Can’t.”  Asylum took a deep breath, bracing himself for a conversation they’ve already had.

    “Why not.”

    “I’m just… not tired.”

    “You sounded tired when you were whining about how far away the ruins were.”

    “Physically tired and brainily tired are two different things.”

    “Did you just make up a word?”

    “Maybe.”

    “You have to at least  _ try _ .”  Asylum was not to be deterred.

    “I tried back at your place and it didn’t work!”  Hopelessness was starting to mix with the annoyance in his voice.  Asylum paused, sensing that maybe this was more serious than Ghost just being stubborn.

    “Still nervous, huh?”

    Ghost brought his phone back to his face once more in an attempt to hide any emotion that might show, “maybe.”

    “You should have just  _ said  _ so.  Instead of acting all obnoxious about it.”

    “I act all obnoxious about everything, though.”

    “Fair enough.”  A spell of silence took hold as Asylum contemplated what else he could say, and as Ghost resumed his task of editing his videos.  Finally Asylum just decided to take the plunge. “... Wanna talk about it?”

    “Not really, no.”

    “Then you leave me no recourse…” Asylum reached for Ghost’s phone, which garnered an actual yelp as Ghost snatched it away.

    “Don’t  _ scare  _ me like that!”

    “Then stop using it as a distraction and go to sleep!”  The two glowered at each other for a beat, neither wanting to back down.  Ghost, however, was the first to crack. He huffed and tucked his phone into his pocket. 

    “Happy?”

    “As long as you don’t take it out in the middle of the night and use it in your sleeping bag?  Yes, I am.”

    Ghost’s scowl deepened as he wiggled further into the sleeping bag.  “Go away.”

    “Sleep tight, gremlin,” Asylum said as he backed out and closed the tent flap behind him.

    Ghost sighed and stared at the apex of the tent over his head, letting the sounds of the landscape outside overtake him; maybe it’d drown out the constant noise in his head.

    He had to admit, it was better than complete silence.

* * *

 

    How Ghost awoke was sadly not as peaceful as he how he drifted to sleep.  Mostly because he was woken up by Lena slashing the side of the tent open and yelling at him.

    “SUN’S ALMOST UP SLEEPYHEAD!”

    Ghost sat bolt-upright and screamed.

    “Lena, what the hell have you done?”  Asylum’s voice drifted over.

    “I’m waking up Twinkus over here!”

    “You could have done that literally  _ any other way _ .” Ghost said, pulling his sleeping bag closer to himself, as if it would be enough to protect him should Lena decide to maul him.

    “I could have stabbed you.”  Lena pointed out, that all too common crazy look in her eye gleaming.

    “Lena, don’t st-- wait, Ghost was asleep?”  Asylum’s chiding was interrupted by surprise.

    “I  _ was _ .”  Ghost griped.

    “Lena, why’d you wake him up?  It’s like getting a baby to fall asleep; once they’re out you let it happen.”

    “I’m not a  _ baby _ !”

    “You’re right, you’re a raccoon,” Lena said, then turned to Asylum.  “I got bored. I wanna go into the ruins.” Asylum sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.  The others, meanwhile, had heard the commotion and come running.

    “Aw, come on, Lena, I made that tent myself!”  Mimi complained once she took in the scene.

    “All your concern for my well-being is appreciated.” Ghost grumbled as he climbed out of the sleeping bag and stood up.

    “Psh, Lena wouldn’t kill you.  She likes you.” Mimi said dismissively.

    Ghost blushed and opened his mouth to respond, not sure whether to communicate his confusion or indignation first.  He was cut off, however, before he could express either.

    “Well, now that everyone is up and about, we might as well make breakfast and set off.”  Sari said.

    “I’d like that.”  Asylum agreed.

    Ghost, looking over to the fire pit, noticed that there was, again, a frustratingly large amount of things he hadn’t seen anyone carry with them that was set out while he slept.  There were enough chairs set out for everyone to sit around the fire, as well as what looked like some sort of game with a cup and dice, maybe it’s old-school Yahtzee, he had no way of knowing.  There was also a secondary bedroll laid out on the ground with nothing protecting it, implying that someone else also slept last night, though it was basically impossible to figure out who.

    “Hash browns and fried bananas sound good with everyone?”  Sari asked, somehow pulling just a flat iron sheet, or what seemed like one, from her inventory.  “Everyone except Asylum, that is.” She smiled cheekily.

    “What, can he only eat one kind of fruit?”  Ghost asked, just barely keeping himself from laughing if he was right.

    “No, it’s-”  Sari was cut off.

    “They’re a bad luck fruit!  Come on guys can’t you have  _ anything else _ for breakfast?”  Asylum complained.

    “Pirate superstition.”  Mimi finished Sari’s sentence, rolling her eyes at Asylum’s old ways.  Despite Asylum’s wishes, Sari turned over some of the embers in the fire, set the iron sheet down on it, and started cooking anyways, bananas included.

    “Wow that’s...incredibly specific.”  Ghost marveled at the fact that this wasn’t just a thing about being some sort of madness demon but was just a thing that actual, normal people in this time supposedly believed.

    “Not as specific as making sure that all eggshells are ground up into powder so, Gods forbid,  _ witches _ don’t come chasing after you.”  Mimi mimicked the stereotypical sound of a spirit to complete her mockery of Asylum, who was pouting, as usual.

    “Come on that really scared me as a kid leave me alone!”  He attempted to defend himself.

    “Ah, yes, ‘kid’ as in ‘young twenty something who just escaped prison for what was probably not the first time’.”  Sari chimed in, making Asylum’s pout even more pronounced. For some reason, knowing that the people around him have fears too, very silly fears but fears nonetheless, made Ghost...more at ease.  He felt less alone, at any rate.


	26. Nobody Likes To Argue

   Everything was packed up almost as fast as it was put down the night before, the ashes from the fire were kicked around and dead, and the group set off again as if they hadn’t stopped at all.

   “Have you been in battle before?”  Mimi asked Ghost.

   “Uh, yeah?  I’ve been in plenty of fights before.”  Ghost was almost offended at the implication that he doesn’t know how to fight.

   “No I mean like, have you ever worn armor and or have you ever used an actual weapon.”  She clarified.

   “I use weapons!”  Ghost’s indignance was showing now.

   “Oh, like one of your ‘guns’ has any defensive capability.”  She rolled her eyes. Sari had to, once again, step in so that a fight didn’t pick up.

   “I believe that what she’s trying to say is that you should stay towards the center of the group when we enter the ruins, or you should at least stick by one of us if the group gets split up.”  She offered.

   “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself!  Why are you all babying me!”

   “We aren’t babying you!  Your skills make you incapable of adequately pulling your weight here and therefore you need to be protected!”  Sari looked either angry or exasperated, Ghost still couldn’t read her facial expressions very well due to the nature of her features.

   “If it’s any consolation I’m sure you’re more than competent in your home world.”  Asylum said, not turning back as he kept walking towards the ruin. Ghost pouted deeply and slowed his pace dramatically, almost making Mimi run into him.  She huffed at his inconsideration, but decided he didn’t need more sass at the moment.

   “Don’t...don’t be upset at Sari being as protective as she is, it’s her nature to be a kind of,” Mimi struggled to find the words she was looking for, “mother bear type.  She’s still the same way with Asylum believe it or not.” Ghost scoffed.

   “Yeah, right, she  _ cares _ about me.  What kind of fantasy Hallmark movie am I in?”

   “Hallmark?  Movie?”

   “You know what, forget about it.”  Ghost turned his head further away from Mimi than it already was, fixing his gaze on the ground in front of him.

   Mimi, however, had had enough.  “Do you always respond to people caring about you like this?”

   “It doesn’t  _ feel  _ like people caring about me!  It feels like people think I’m useless!”

   “You're not  _ useless _ , you're in a place you barely even know so you have no way of knowing how to look out for the dangers and to properly protect yourself from them!”

   “See!  You think I'm useless!”

   “I'm beginning to see why you're not used to having friends.”  Mimi muttered.

   “What’s that supposed to mean huh?”

   “It means your debbie downer attitude is only making things worse for you, that’s what.”

   “...what?”

   “You heard me!  You always assume that people hate you and then you push them away!  Well guess what, when people  _ don’t  _ hate you, they try to make sure you stay alive!”  There was a silence between the two and they had long since stopped walking.  There was a war in Ghost’s head between being offended at her daring to know how he is and the realization that that’s how he is, all while Mimi was glaring intensely at him.  “Well, cat got your tongue, quickwit? No insult to throw?”

   “I…”  Ghost was at a loss for words.  To be read so completely by who he thought was just an acquaintance was...weird, to say the least.  Ghost ultimately decided to close his mouth and chew on his lower lip. Mimi just huffed and turned to continue walking.  The others, however, had also been rooted to the spot and were staring.

   “Well?  This ruin isn’t going to loot itself.”  Mimi said, her tone returning to normal. 

   “Yeah, we should keep going.”  Asylum replied, grateful for the tension breaking.  And with that, the group continued onward.

   Ghost hung towards the back of the pack, hood up, hands in pockets, and gaze fixed on the ground.  Given all the noise in his head, he didn’t exactly feel like conversating. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice Asylum had hung back long enough for Ghost to catch up.  He startled when Asylum spoke.

   “... you okay?”

   “I… don’t think so.”

   “Mimi can be intense, yeah,” Asylum paused, “she was right though.”

   “So what?  It’s not like what happens to me will affect her in any way.”  Ghost scowled, though with his hood up nobody could see it.

   “You really don’t know how friends work do you?”  Remorse laced Asylum’s voice, but Ghost still refused to look anywhere but the ground he was walking on.

   “Not like I have many.”  Ghost said, his voice barely audible.

   Asylum sighed, opting to ignore the self-deprecation.  “She doesn’t hate you. She’s trying to get you to realize… people care about you.  Even when you’re being an ass.”

   “Why though.”

   “Ghost, this might come as a surprise to you, but you actually have a few redeeming qualities.  You just bury them under sarcasm and insults.”

   Ghost made a noise in his throat.  “Is that the ‘pushing away’ she was referring to?”

   “That would be it.”

   The both of them were silent for a moment, as Asylum didn’t want to put his foot in it and Ghost had resumed biting his lip.  Finally, he spoke.

   “I don’t know how to  _ not  _ be sarcastic.  Johnny’s the only person I can do that with.”

   “If you just  _ stopped arguing with us  _ that could change.”

   “I don’t like being treated like I can’t handle myself, either!” Ghost paused and amended his statement, “even if there’s good intentions.”

   “I told you earlier, it’s not that you’re a  _ useless person _ , it’s that you’re ill-equipped for the situation.  Not your fault. At least, I don’t think it is. I don’t know how you wound up here.”

   “At least you’re honest.”  Ghost mumbled. Based on his refusal to look up, something was still gnawing at him.  “I don’t want to be reliant on someone.”

   “You’re not being reliant, you’re getting help.  There’s nothing wrong with that. What  _ is  _ wrong is rejecting it and becoming completely reliant on one person.”

   “I’m not--” Ghost stopped himself and huffed, not wanting to keep denying things but still not satisfied with silence, “Toast’s been all I’ve had.”

   “Not anymore.  You’re stuck with us.”  Asylum said, nudging Ghost with his elbow.  Ghost’s mouth twitched upwards, not that Asylum could see.

   “I  _ guess  _ I can deal with that.”

   “You don’t have much of a choice my friend.”  Asylum retorted with a smirk.

   Ghost’s snappy response was interrupted by Lena’s outburst some distance ahead.  “We’re  _ heeeere! _ ”  Asylum’s eyes lit up and he sped up his pace, gently pulling Ghost along by his arm.

   “Come on!  Treasure awaits!”  He grinned childishly, thinking of all the shiny things to plunder.  Ghost had no choice but to follow along, rolling his eyes to hide the fact he was smiling  _ just a little bit _ .

   Ghost had to admit, seeing the ruin was pretty breathtaking.  The way the light filtering through the leaves only partially shone gold on the crumbling carved marble columns, the glowing crystal in the door and atop the only dais still standing providing a hauntingly beautiful contrast.  He must have been stilled in awe, because Sari piped up.

   “Beautiful, isn’t it?  Apparently it used to be a sort of audience hall for the Aelyids, like a theater or something.”  She continued taking in the scene.

   “And, most importantly,” Asylum walked over to the dais and picked up the crystal, “welkynd stone right here.  If there’s stuff like this out here that means there  _ must _ be lots more plunder inside!”  He slipped the stone in his pocket and walked over to the door.

   “So...what kind of stuff am I going to find in there?”  Ghost asked, trying to be as prepared as possible for anything that might lie ahead.

   “Fight-wise there are ghosts, zombies, animated skeletons, and sometimes there are bandits in the upper levels!”  Lena explained with glee.

   “Not to mention the traps but since you don’t know all the different kind of traps to be able to look out for them, just make sure someone else is five steps in front of you.”  Mimi added.

   “Yeah!  You’ll be fine as long as you stay next to one of us.  Let’s go!” Lena urged, unsheathing her sword and taking off towards a haphazard arrangement of stone framing a dark opening leading to, presumably, more intricate, maze-like ruins.

   “HEY, WAIT UP!”  Mimi shouted after her sister and gave chase.  Sari cast her husband a wry look and followed the twins at a more leisurely pace.

   “Ghost, if you wanted an opportunity to use that gun of yours, now is the time.”  Asylum said slyly, giving Ghost a slight nudge.

   Ghost loaded his handgun and allowed himself a grin.  “I thought you’d never ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	27. Ruins in Ruin

    Ghost wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he entered the ruin’s interior, following behind Sari as per request, with Asylum taking up the back of the train.  There was only enough room for a single file in the hall they all found themselves in, and everyone had their weapons out, walking mindfully through the ruins and chasing after the twins, who have proven themselves reckless many times in the short time Ghost has been around to see their antics.  For some reason that Ghost couldn’t place, the hall in front of Sari seemed to glow faintly yellow, just enough light to see with. The light flickered every few seconds, but stayed constant otherwise. He tried not to let it bother him for a bit, but that abatement only really lasted about a minute, he  _ had _ to know.

    “Sari?”  He got her attention.

    “Hm?”  She turned her head to look at him, and Ghost almost jumped, her eyes were glowing!  He had to restrain himself from reflex shooting her, as for him glowing eyes usually meant something bad.

    “Nevermind, it’s nothing.”  He looked away awkwardly.

    “Oh, it’s my eyes isn’t it?”  She almost laughed. “I get that a lot, I can make them stop glowing if it’s bothering you.”

    “No it’s alright, those just usually indicate angry spirits and stuff.”

    “Ah.”  Sari nodded and then cocked her head.  “Well I rarely get angry so you don’t have to worry about that.”

    “Mm.”  There was more silence for a bit, then they walked into a big room with pedestals holding more of those glowing stones, which Asylum promptly rushed past Ghost and Sari to take, the latter grabbing the back of his armor and stopping in him in his tracks.

    “You’re going to walk right into a trap like that you idiot!”  She hissed and pulled Asylum back, making his shoes scuff on the floor before he regained his footing.  She let go of him and Ghost could just barely see the defiant glare in his eyes as he walked over again, slower and more deliberately as Sari watched him with crossed arms.  He successfully reached for and grabbed the first crystal, putting it in his pocket as he went over to the pedestal across to him, stepping on a big square plate. Suddenly that plate wasn’t there and Asylum fell into the ground.

    “I told him.” Sari sighed and shook her head.  She took a look into the void where he once stood and leapt in with no hesitation.

    “Okay,  _ bye _ , I guess!”  Ghost shouted after her, his voice echoing off of the stone, to no response.  He sighed and sat down on the floor, with his legs dangling into the abyss, thinking about his next move.  He would definitely get lost in here if he tried to find Mimi, or run into Lena, so looking around on his own wasn’t looking like a good option.  The other option he saw was to jump down into the pit, following Asylum and Sari. Looking down into the pit, he couldn’t see any light at all, an incredibly long drop.  Unless something was blocking the light, but he liked that idea less so he tried not to think about it. He  _ could _ try going back outside, but with no light source except his weak phone light it would be almost impossible for him to navigate.  He was really starting to dislike how much he was being left alone. Sitting in the darkness doing nothing wasn’t doing any good for his boredom and his anxiety either, so he had to choose an option quickly.  Maybe if he got up and looked around, another option will present itself, hopefully a better one.

    As Ghost got to his feet, the stone near the pit crumbled and gave way, sending him tumbling into the pit.  Good news? There wasn’t something blocking the way so he would at least be reunited with part of the adventuring group.  Bad news? No obstruction meant there was a long fall. Omitting the upsetting details, it was not a pleasant landing. But, on the bright side, Sari and Asylum were  _ just _ leaving through a very small and ominous tunnel that leads out of the pitfall trap, so they were able to hear his... _ graceful landing _ , and come running.

    “Did you try to follow us?  Dear Gods he tried to follow us, there’s always a way back up you didn’t have to  _ dive in after us _ , though I suppose I appreciate the concern.”  The glow of Sari’s eyes seemed more intense, though Ghost didn’t know if her eyes glowed brighter with higher emotions or he has a concussion or something.  “Asylum get him a healing potion I think he’s hurt!” She crouched down beside him, warhammer on the ground and forgotten for the moment. Asylum dug in his inventory and got out the biggest healing potion he brought with him, putting the bottle in Sari’s waiting hand.

    “I didn’t  _ mean  _ to go in after you,” Ghost mumbled, still coherent enough to decide to omit the part where he planned on making a slightly more calculated descent.

    “Stop talking.”  Sari commanded. “Can you drink this, or do you need help?”

    “‘M  _ fine _ ,” Ghost insisted, taking two attempts to take the potion out of Sari’s hand.  Finally he drank it, using his sleeve to wipe a rogue dribble from his face. “See?  I’m fine.”

    “Not according to the sound of your bones crunching upon impact.”  Asylum, who appeared unharmed, quipped dryly. Sari nudged him, then picked up her hammer.

    “Come on, we still have to track down the twins.”  Sari reminded, even as Ghost gave Asylum the stink eye.

    “And to think I was actually worried about you.”  Ghost muttered as he trailed after Asylum and Sari.  Asylum snickered.

    “Hey, I didn’t do anything wrong!”  Sari said.

    “I mean, I was talking to Asylum, but it would have helped if you, you know,  _ told me anything _ .”

    “Don’t talk to my wife like that!”  Asylum gave Ghost a shove.

    “Please don’t shove me; I just  _ slammed into a stone floor from fifteen feet up _ .”

    “I thought you said you were fine.”

    “You two are making me  _ look forward  _ to finding Mimi and Lena.”  Sari sighed as she began the ascent up a narrow staircase leading back to the main level.

* * *

    A trail of remains preceded the twins, serving as a gruesome trail of breadcrumbs for the other three to follow.

    “Guess we don’t have to worry much about enemies lurking anymore.”  Asylum said mildly. Sari shook her head, while Ghost just looked slightly perturbed.

    “Lena?  Mimi?” Sari called, her voice echoing.

    “Sari?  That you?”  Mimi’s voice sounded in the distance and then there she was, bounding around a corner, bloodied sword in hand.  “Oh hey, there you are! We were wondering where you guys had gone off to.”

    “Funny, we could say the same to you.”  Asylum replied. “And “we”? Lena? Worried where we were?”

    “I mean, I was trying to be generous, but you got me there.”  Mimi shrugged. “She went off on a different hall, haven’t seen her for a bit.  Should probably look for her.”

    “ _ YEAH,  _ THAT SOUNDS LIKE A  _ GOOD IDEA. _ ”  Asylum said incredulously. 

    “How do you manage to make sarcasm sound like an accusation?”  Mimi complained, sheathing her sword for the moment.

    “It’s what you deserve.”  Asylum said simply.

    “Can we  _ go  _ now?  I don’t want to spend anymore time in a darkened, blood-spattered room than I have to.”  Ghost interjected. He had flipped his hood back up at some point.

    “What, need more light?”  Mimi asked. “It’s perfectly fine in here!”

    “ _ It really isn’t. _ ”  Ghost recoiled further into his hoodie.

    “I think he does, Asylum don’t you have a torch to spare?”  Sari asked him, in a tone that very much indicated that the man in question didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter concerning his next actions.

    “I...don’t think so.”  Asylum went digging through his inventory again, to no avail.  “I can cast magelight though?  I can have a glowing orb stick to your sleeve or something.”

    “I really don’t think blinding me is the solution here.”

    “Well then I got nothing.  Maybe Lena picked up a torch somewhere along the way, sometimes you can find em while dungeon crawling.”  Asylum shrugged.

    “Yeah, just keep close to one of us, you’ll be fine!  Now let’s go find Lena, get that varla stone, and get out of here!”  Mimi’s optimism didn’t exactly match the blood spattered all over her armor, not that Ghost could really see.

    “What kind of anime protagonist…”  Ghost mumbled. Asylum heard his comment and squinted in confusion, but ultimately decided not to ask, at least not for now.  Based on Ghost’s reactions to various stuff it probably wasn’t the best time to try and get an explanation of some sort of future thing out of him.

    “Alright, last I knew she went down this way.”  Mimi muscled her way through the crowd to the front of the party, walking down the hall without waiting for anyone to follow her.  This left no choice for the rest of the group but to do exactly that. “This is where she went!” Mimi stopped in front of something.  Ghost could just barely see the wall she stopped in front of due to the same thing, but what he  _ could _ make out was some sort of greenish blue glow, and gems arranged in the shape of a tree.

    “Lena went… through there?”  Ghost asked slowly, puzzlement furrowing his brow.

    “Yep.”  Mimi said.  And then she placed her hand directly in the middle of the gem formation, then a rumbling sound came through on the other side of the door, stone scraping on stone.


	28. Dungeon Crawling

    From under Mimi’s hand, the section of wall slid up and into the ceiling, revealing another passageway that definitely felt a lot more menacing than any of the previous ones felt, at least to Ghost it did.  For everyone else this was basically standard procedure, minus the extra person. Mimi dropped her hand back down to her side and continued forward, the rest of the team following her, this time Sari took up the rear guard, right behind Ghost.

    It didn’t take long for the trail of gore to resume; it seemed as though Lena had successfully dispatched any enemies all by herself, leaving no fighting for her twin, which made the latter vaguely upset.  What also made her slightly upset was the fact that she was, at one point, keeping track of how many things she had killed in order to compare it to the number of things that Lena had killed to see who “wins”, but had since lost track of that number when she was surprised by the others.

    The trail of corpses did nothing to ease Ghost’s anxieties, particularly his dread of seeing Lena again.  He tried to focus on the crumbling reliefs on the walls to distract from all the blood and dead things, but in his attempt to distract himself he ended up slipping on something, a bone covered in blood, perhaps, and clung to the back of Asylum’s shirt to avoid going all the way down to the floor.

    “You okay?”  Asylum asked, trying to keep his balance.

    “I think I slipped on some blood…”

    “Watch your step; you don’t want any more broken bones on this trip.”  Was Asylum’s only response.

    “You’re telling me.”  Ghost muttered, regaining his footing.  Usually in these sorts of situations he had a flashlight, but not so this occasion, which made avoiding Lena’s improvised landmines more difficult.  Not that ease of mobility was Ghost’s primary concern.

    The hallway opened into a room that had high, cracked ceilings; how it hadn’t caved in yet was a wonder.  It looked more like a study or perhaps living chambers than a grand atrium, but its original purpose paled in comparison to what was currently happening within its confines-- Lena hacking away gleefully at a group of skeletons.  Mimi, being the first to see the fight, immediately unsheathed her sword and leapt into the fray, and the skeletons started falling down faster due to her help.

    “ _ Mimiiiiii! _ ” Lena whined, administering a downward stab into a lunging skeleton’s skull, “I had those under control!”

    “Oh like Hell you did.”  Mimi slashed at the neck bones of one of the skeletons, sending the skull tumbling to the floor.

    “I  _ did _ \--” Lena started to retort, but Asylum’s voice echoed from the doorway, cutting her off.

    “You know, the point of coming here isn’t to kill everything, right?”  He said, sounding somewhat tired of their shenanigans.

    “ _ The point of coming here isn’t to kill everything _ .”  Lena repeated sassily as she continued to fight.  The group of skeletons was now down to two from the previous five, the twins seeming more aggressive while fighting next to each other than when they fought alone; whether this was borne of competitiveness or anger is unknown.  Asylum, out of spite more than anything, stepped into the battle and quickly dispatched the remaining skeletons, stealing both of the twins’ kills.

    “I’m glad to see you agree with me, Lena.”  He said, in a tone that indicated he most definitely knew that’s not what Lena meant by repeating his words.  Both Sari and Ghost hung back and only watched as the ensuing fight unfolded, the former having certainly expected this result.

    “Do they always act like this?”  Ghost asked.

    “Unfortunately, yes.”  Sari sighed. “We can just leave them here and go look for the Varla stone ourselves if you want.”  She offered.

    “I don’t know what a Varla stone is but that sounds like a good idea.”

    “Good.  Come on, looks like the door further in is this way.”  Sari started walking along the wall of the room, brushing past all the support columns and crumbled seating in attempt to not draw the attention of the fighters.  Ghost followed closely behind, eager to get away from the combative nutcases. When they got to the adjacent wall, Sari forced open the iron filigree door and stepped through it quietly, waiting for Ghost to follow her before closing the door behind her.  It seemed to lead into another, similar room, though this one was darker and in slightly better shape, with no monsters waiting for them. It seemed as though they were in dormitory wing of sorts.

    “The stone will probably be in one of these rooms, where there’s less exposure to looters.”  Sari explained.

    “Looters who aren’t us, you mean?”

    “Exactly.  What we’re looking for is a large crystal, it glows white.  Can’t really miss it.” Sari explained, and then went around opening doors and peering inside the rooms, looking for any potential dangers before stepping inside and rifling through chests for anything of value, occasionally pocketing things like coins and potions.  Ghost decided to follow suit, grateful that the lighting from crystals set in brasiers and growing in the walls was enough to see without assistance. Since Sari had started opening up doors on the left side of the wing, Ghost went with the door on his right.

    “Big, white glowy crystal, big white glowy crystal…”  Ghost muttered as he tugged open drawers, scanned bookshelves, and shifted detritus around.  He recognized pretty much none of the items he found (save for a few coins that he definitely tucked away), but figured if he remembered Sari’s description he couldn’t mess up too badly.  Seeing nothing in the first room, he left and went to the next room, not thinking of any sort of danger when he entered the room, which was unfortunate for him, because as soon as he crossed the threshold into the room a headless zombie turned to face him, gave a gurgling growl, and charged him.  Not hesitating at all, he pulled out his gun and unloaded a full clip into the zombie, slowly backing up to stay just out of its range. He reloaded his gun and shot some more, then reloaded his gun and shot even more. He reached in his bag for another clip for his gun, but found nothing but a notebook and some other miscellaneous items, all of absolutely no use right now.  The zombie, meanwhile, was struggling, but still very much… un-alive. Luckily for Ghost, Sari had heard the commotion and came running, hammer at the ready. She brushed past Ghost and delivered a killing blow to the zombie’s half-decomposed spine, killing it instantly.

    “Uh, thanks.”

    “You’re welcome.”  Sari seemed to raise a brow.  “This is why we asked if you had melee weapons.  A sword doesn’t run out of ammunition.”

    Ghost made a face at her. “Yeah okay, guess I should have  _ gone home  _ to pick up my  _ trusty saber  _ and  _ put it in my bag _ .”

    “Yes, that would have been the best course of action.”  Sari deadpanned. “I do have a spare shortsword with me if you can use that.”

    “ _ Yes _ , I know how to use a sword.”  Ghost huffed, still not appreciating anything that smacked of condescension but trying not to be mean to Sari.

    “There’s a way to say yes without all the theatrics, you know.”  Sari dug around in her inventory, then pulled out a silver sword and handed it to Ghost, who underestimated its weight and nearly dropped it.  “I should have mentioned that it’s made of silver and not steel. That was my mistake.” 

    “That’s okay.”  Ghost muttered as he adjusted his grip in an effort to familiarize himself.  “I usually used lighter swords at home.”

    “You don’t have to use the sword, if you don’t want to.”

    “ _ I got this. _ ”

    “Whatever you say.”  Sari said with a slight eye roll.  Sometimes Ghost reminded her so much of Asylum it hurt.  

    “Come on, we gotta find this rock.”  Ghost said, searching the room now that it was cleared of enemies.  Sari went back to the room she was searching and continued rifling through the miscellaneous items left behind.  A comfortable silence unfolded, punctuated by the sounds of various things being moved around. But that silence was not to last, as Asylum and the twins suddenly came barreling down the hall.

    “Got tired of being at each others’ throats, huh?”  Sari commented.

    “I missed you.”  Asylum said innocently.

    “So you think being sappy is going to save you, Weaver?”

    “ _ Save me _ ?  From what?!”

    “Me, with a sword.”  Ghost interjected, looking quite pleased with himself.

    Asylum looked from Ghost, to the sword he was holding, to Sari.  “Who approved this?”

    “He ran out of ammunition for his gun, he has to have some sort of weapon.”

    “So the raccoon has a real weapon now?  It’s about time.” Mimi interrupted. Ghost raised his sword to point it threateningly at Mimi, but Sari stopped him.

    “Before you three so  _ rudely  _ interrupted us, we were looking for the Varla stone.  Make yourselves useful, please?”

    “I’m  _ always  _ useful.”  Asylum said petulantly, even as he obliged her and started looking on the other side of the room.  Lena ran around, opening all of the doors to see which ones had zombies behind them to fight, while everyone else looked around in the rooms for the Varla stone.

    In one of the rooms, Ghost saw a square looking piece of stone on the wall, sticking out from the rest of the wall and decorated with a tiny chunk of blue stone in the middle.  All of his ghost-hunting instincts told him two things: that was a button, and it needed to be pushed. And who was he to deny such an impulse?

    He reached up and pushed the button.

    A metallic clanking sound echoed in the main chamber, drawing everyone out to look as one of the chandeliers slowly lowered down into the hallway.  As the chain lowered it into view, most of the people watching recognized what was in the center of it.

    “Ah- _ hah _ !  Varla stone!”  Asylum immediately grabbed it once he was able to reach.

    “Hey, I wanna see it! I found the thing!”  Ghost protested, reaching for it. Asylum shifted it to one hand so he could use the other to hold Ghost at a distance.

    “No way, last time you handled something valuable,  _ you broke the whole thing. _ ”  Asylum said.  Ghost glared and delivered a swift kick to Asylum’s shin.  While it didn’t hurt, it did take him by surprise. “Okay, I probably had that coming.”

    “Before you break that as well, we should probably get it home so we can use it properly?”  Sari interjected, completely tired of all of them at this point.

    “You’re probably right.”  Asylum relented.

    “Aw.”  Lena said.

    “I don’t know what you’re complaining about, you probably killed every living thing in this place except for us.” Mimi grumbled.

    “That can be corrected.”

    “You’re like a walking Hot Topic advertisement.”  Ghost mumbled, not quite aware he had said that out loud.

    “A what?”

    “Let’s just go.”  Sari said wearily, bodily pushing Ghost and Lena along, the other two following along behind.


	29. Tedious Magic

    “Are you  _ sure _ you have everything this time?”  Ghost looked at Asylum drawing with chalk on the floor.  They had finally gotten home and situated, back into normal clothes instead of armor and such, and Asylum was currently setting up the magic needed to make the portal so Ghost could get back home.

    “ _ Yes, I am completely sure _ .  I grabbed sacred lily seeds while we were camping.”  Asylum said, not looking up for a split second from his work.

    “Yes, and knowing you, it’s best you’re left alone while you work.”  Sari started to walk out the door of the completely empty room, void of everything except a ceiling specifically for the purpose of practicing potentially dangerous magic.

    “Yeah go rest and stuff, this might take days.  Depends on how long that mixture takes to turn purple.”  Asylum vaguely gestured to an alchemy set on the floor behind him, boiling away some sort of brown looking watery muck.  Sari shooed Ghost through the door before he had time to speak any sort of questions.

    “ _ Days?? _ ”  He stressed as soon as the door closed.

    “He’s probably exaggerating, don’t worry about it.  Won’t even be two.” Mimi reassured him, pushing herself away from the wall she was leaning on and joined the other two in walking through the halls.

    “‘Probably.’”  Ghost mumbled skeptically, shoving his hands in his pockets.

    “I’m sorry to say it but what normally counts as a ‘day’ here can vary wildly.  Sometimes a day is 16 hours, sometimes it’s 30. One gets used to phrasing their sentences to include as many possibilities as possible.”  Sari explained.

    “So, if I was asleep for half a night once... _ how long was I asleep?? _ ”

    “Oh I’d say, on that night, about 14 hours.”

    Ghost paused for a moment, taken aback.  “14  _ hours _ ?  Not, like, minutes?”

    “Yes, hours, dummy.”  Mimi affirmed.

    “Wow.”

    “What, do you not get a full 8 hours?”

    “Not really.”

    “That explains a lot.”  Sari mused.

    “What is  _ that _ supposed to mean?”

    “Just that if I never got a good night’s sleep, I’d always be irritable, too, is all.”  Ghost was surprised at her sound logic, because from what he’s noticed most compliments and insults aren’t exactly straightforward around here.  In fact, nothing was ever really straightforward except for threats. After all the time it took for him to realize this, Ghost still wasn’t sure of how much he disliked this fact.

    “By that logic, he should be a ray of sunshine right now.”  Mimi jabbed. Ghost looked over and stuck his tongue out at her.

    “I’ll have you know, I have plenty of reason to be irritable.”  He said primly.

    “Yeah, okay kid.”  Mimi said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.  “So what’s bothering you now, princess?”

    “You calling me ‘kid’, for one thing!”

    “I’m pretty sure if we were to go to your timeline, we’d all be older than you.  By, like, a lot.”

    “I don’t care.”  Ghost said, taking his hands out of his pockets so he could cross his arms instead.

    Sari shook her head at Mimi and Ghost’s shenanigans.  “I don’t think it matters, since you both act like children.”

    Mimi gasped and clutched her chest.  “ _ Sari _ , you  _ wound  _ me.”

    “Good.”  She replied rather apathetically, earning a soft punch in the arm from Mimi.  “Anyways, is there any sort of food you prefer to have, Ghost? Or do you just refuse to eat everything?”

    “... the second option.”  Ghost huffed.

    Sari rolled her eyes and changed course towards the kitchen.  Mimi, meanwhile, latched onto Ghost’s shoulders and pushed him after Sari.

    “I can walk on my own, you know!”  Ghost protested, wiggling free of Mimi’s grip for a moment.  It didn’t take her long to grab the back of his hoodie, though, a mischievous grin on her face.

    “Yeah, but apparently you can’t eat on your own, so I’m helping.”  Ghost tried to dig his heels into the floor to stop Mimi from pushing him forward, but what ended up happening is him sliding across the floor, not much slower than if he just walked but damn it he was committed to this now.  What he did not expect, however, was Mimi picking him up and slinging him over her shoulder like a fireman when she got tired of pushing him along.

    “I have legs!!”  He protested again.

    “Yeah but it’s your attitude that needs help.”  Mimi smirked, barely burdened by carrying Ghost like a sack of flour.  Ghost, having been in this sort of situation before, knew that there was basically no chance to squirm out of her grip right now so he didn’t even try, settling for huffing angrily.  He would have crossed his arms but with his current position it would be very awkward.

    Upon entering the kitchen, Mimi deposited Ghost on top of the table and proceeded to hop up onto the countertop, swinging her legs back and forth.

    “Get your rear off the counter, you hellion.”  Sari said, swatting at Mimi with a dishrag.

    “Oh so  _ Asylum _ can sit on the counter and be perfectly fine, but when  _ I _ sit up here it’s a crime.  I see how it is.”

    “Well I’m glad you understand, then.  Now get down before I use an actual weapon.”

    Mimi made a big scene of groaning, sliding off the counter, and trudging over to the table from which Ghost watched their bickering unfold.  Sari shook her head and began rummaging around to see what was on the menu. “So, Ghost, since asking what you’d  _ like  _ to eat is probably futile, what are you  _ willing _ to eat?”

    “Yeah.”  Was his only response.

    “Al...right then, I’ll see what I can scavenge.  Really need to go on another shopping trip.” Sari mused, looking at all the odds and ends in the cabinets.  Pushing some bottles and jars aside, she spied a meat hook on the wall with cured beef of unspecified cut and grabbed it.  “Well, we have this?” Sari showed it to Ghost, who cocked his head quizzically.

    “... What is ‘this’, though?”

    Mimi shrugged and spoke before Sari could respond.  “I honestly have no clue.”

    “... that’s not the worst answer to that question I’ve ever gotten. I’ll take it.”

    “I’m...not sure if your response to that is cause for concern or not.”  What Sari was going to say before was forgotten in puzzlement. Ghost just shrugged and took it so he could pick at it at his own pace.

    Asylum chose that moment to poke his head in the door.  “Is there food happening?”

    “Allegedly.”  Mimi wisecracked.  Asylum traipsed further into the room, a searching look in his eyes.

    “The prince demands the food.”

    “If the prince wants food, he can go to the market and get some himself.”  Sari shot back.

    Asylum cast an indignant look at Ghost.  “ _ He  _ has food.”

    “ _ He _ is about three steps shy of becoming a skeleton.” 

    “Don’t you have intense magic stuff to be doing?”  Ghost interjected.

    “Eh,” Asylum waved his hand, “I have to wait twenty minutes for something.”  He redirected his attention back to Sari. “You’re telling me we don’t have  _ anything? _ ”

    “Look for yourself, there might be something in the jars we have around.”

    Asylum sighed and started poking around as Sari and Mimi watched, amused at his expense.  After a while, Asylum got discouraged at the lack of food he was finding and huffed. “I  _ guess  _ I can do magic on an empty stomach.”  He said, acting as if he was unsure in attempt to garner sympathy and pity.

    “Yes, you can.”  Sari said, mercilessly.  Asylum pouted and left the room, presumably to go back to the room with magic going on.  Sari turned her back once more to see if anything else laid in the cabinets before she made a shopping list, and Mimi leaned back in her chair and tossed arrows at the stone walls to see if she could make one stick, as if she were playing darts.  Ghost, meanwhile, hopped off of his perch, skirted around the table so as not to attract attention, and slipped out the door after Asylum before it fully closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almos...


	30. "I can sneak though"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi I'm Jessie and I know a lot of TES lore

    Ghost trailed behind Asylum, thinking himself to be some sort of thief in the shadows or such, sticking to the wall and sneaking along about twenty feet behind Asylum at any given time.  He thought that, maybe if he kept Asylum in sight, the castle wouldn’t be so spiteful towards him and change up everything.

    Asylum stopped at the end of a hallway, making Ghost freeze in panic.  Was he discovered? What would Asylum do if he was? Luckily enough for Ghost’s anxiety, Asylum turned the corner and continued walking.  For some reason, there seemed to be a convenient lack of guards in the castle for whatever reason, so that was one less thing Ghost had to worry about as he crept along after Asylum.

    Through the garden and over a small bridge, under which flowed a stream swirling gold and purple, something Ghost would have to ask about later when he wasn’t, you know, stalking the very person he would ask the question to, Ghost did trail behind, thinking he was unseen.  Not that he had any reason to think otherwise, of course.

    Compared to where the kitchen/ dining room/ generally used living areas were, the halls Ghost was now following Asylum through started to look less cheerful and warm and more...cold, foreboding.  Anxious, even. Though the only thing Ghost noticed was the change in the lighting, he felt an actual change in his mind as soon as the orange torches turned to blue. He started becoming anxious that he would walk right into a guard at every turn, that he was following too close, and then too far, that one of the statues would come alive an--

    The color of the lights has something to do with this, Ghost realized, as the torches in the halls went back to orange as he snuck along and all his anxiety went away with it.  Well, not  _ all _ of his anxiety, but a good majority of the unfounded anxieties were gone.  This was definitely something he was going to have to look into later, assuming he remembers to.

    Asylum suddenly whisked inside a room and closed the door behind him, leaving Ghost completely alone in the hall as he resumed the supposedly tedious magic rituals.  So of course Ghost snuck up to the door and tried to look inside to see what was going on.

    Creeping up to the door, Ghost edged the door open, the hinges of which were surprisingly silent for being so far back in time-- all the better for sneaking.

    At least, that’s what he thought.

    “Hi.”  Asylum said, without turning to face the intruder.

    Ghost did a double take.  “How did you know I was here?  I was completely silent!”

    “I knew you were following me for a while now.”

    “And you didn’t say anything?  Those weird lamps were  _ tormenting  _ me the whole time!”

    “They were?  Man, I forgot they did that.  Sorry about that. Anyway, hurry up and close that door, would you?  Can’t have any of the magic getting out.”

    Ghost obliged, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.  “Magic can… leak?”

    “It can’t, actually.  I’m just joking.” Asylum replied, still not actually looking at Ghost as he spoke.  Ghost scowled at getting joked on and walked up behind Asylum, trying to see what was happening.

    “So… what’re you doing?”

    “I’m cooking egg salad.  What do you  _ think _ I’m doing??”

    “I meant what  _ magic  _ you were doing, you jerk.”

    Asylum snorted at Ghost’s indignant response.  "If you thought magic could leak out of a room through an open door I don't know how to explain this to you."

    That remark earned Asylum a surprise shove from behind.  “ _ You  _ said it first.”

    “You’re the one who believed me!”

    Ghost took a long, slow inhale in an effort to keep from descending upon Asylum like a rabid wolverine.  “If you don’t actually answer my question I am going to tell on you to Sari.”

    Asylum huffed.  “ _ Fine _ .  See that alchemy set over there?”  Asylum gestured to the alchemy set without waiting to see if Ghost actually looked.  “That’s making a special...potion, I guess you would easily understand it is, that will redirect the magical energy I’m going to be putting into the portal using the Varla stone we got before.  And these chalk patterns?” He now pointed to the floor. “Those are the patterns I need to put that ‘potion’ in to make sure the portal will be stable enough for you to pass through without it collapsing in the middle and trapping you in the waters of Oblivion forever.”

    “The waters of  _ what _ forever?”

    “Oblivion.  Where we are now, at least part of it.  Demon* country, that sort of stuff.” Asylum waved his hand dismissively, as if this wasn’t news at all.

    Ghost blanched, not that Asylum could see.  “Lovely.”

    “And the Waters of Oblivion is like, the space left in between the different realms of Oblivion.**  I could go on about who or what lives there but that’s very off topic.”

    “I’ll take your word for it.”  Ghost mumbled, thoroughly disquieted.  It seemed he couldn’t go a day without learning something horrible about the dimension he found himself stuck in.  Asylum, however, seemed completely unbothered.

    “Oh, by the way, I’ll need something from your dimension to destroy in the making of this portal so it goes to the right place.  Hope that doesn’t bother you too much.”

    “Oh, that’s fine, I guess.  I have some garbage I could get rid of.”  Ghost reached towards his hip to get his bag, only to realize it wasn’t there.  “Uh… hold that thought.”

    Asylum gave Ghost a look.  “Something wrong?”

    “I… don’t have my bag.”  Ghost started looking around the room, as if his bag would be laying conveniently in a corner.    

    “Did you leave it somewhere?”  Asylum asked, puzzled.

    “But I never leave my bag places!  That’s just not a thing that I  _ do _ !”

    “Hey, never say never in this kind of place.  Has a nasty habit of not being true for long.”  Asylum went back over to the alchemy set and swirled the mixture in the retort.  “I don’t need those items for a while yet so don’t get too stressed.”

    “It’s a little late for that.”

    “Well you can just go back to the kitchen or whatever.  Retrace your steps.”

    “This entire castle hates me, I can’t walk a foot out there without getting lost!”

    “This place isn’t  _ sentient _ , dear Talos, it’s just a defense mechanism.  One I don’t know how to get rid of.” Asylum almost laughed.

    “Yeah, because I pose  _ such  _ a threat.”  Ghost snarked.

    “Did you see the state you left the guest room in when you first showed up?  Because I think that’s evidence enough of the threat you pose.”

    “You forced me in there, I think any damages are on you.”

    “Oh, boo-hoo.  You need me to go back to the kitchen with you, or do you think you can handle it?  If you focus hard enough you should be able to get the hallways under control.”

    “Honestly?  I would literally rather you walk with me than get lost in the halls again.”  Unfortunately, as soon as Ghost spoke, the potion or whatever it was that was brewing in the corner started bubbling furiously.

    “Uh, about that offer…”  Asylum started awkwardly, hurrying over to the potion’s container.

    “Yeah.  Yeah, I get it.”  Ghost said flatly.  He sighed and turned to leave.

    “Just focus and it’ll be fine.”  Asylum called over his shoulder.

    “Right.”  Ghost opened the door and took a deep breath.  Here goes nothing.

* * *

 

    Ghost slammed open the door to the kitchen, exhausted and slightly wild-eyed.

    “You look like you’ve been through a war.”  Sari didn’t turn around or look up for more than a second from whatever she was doing that was out of Ghost’s line of sight.

    “I definitely feel like it.”  Ghost replied, somewhat winded.  “Have you seen my bag anywhere? Asylum needs it.”

    “This bag, you mean?”  Sari said, finally turning around with a small smile.  In her hands was the aforementioned bag, along with needles and some thread of different colors.

    “...why are there flowers embroidered into my bag?”

    “Oh these?”  Sari tugged on the strap a bit, where it was damaged before, thanks to Kajsa.  “These are to restore strength so that it doesn’t snap while your carrying it or what have you.  Plus, it looks nicer than just replacing it, don’t you think?”

    Ghost cocked his head as he looked at it.  “I  _ guess _ .  I mean.  Florals aren’t really my thing but I appreciate the gesture.”

    “I’ll take that as a thank-you and say ‘you’re welcome’”  Sari said mildly. “Do you need it right now? It’s not quite finished.”

    “Well he  _ did _ say that he didn’t need it ‘for a while’, s-”  Ghost was cut off.

    “Good.  I promise, this won’t take very long at all.”  Sari began sewing again at what must have been a furious pace, Ghost didn’t know the general pace of regular knitting, no less embroidery.  He knew better than to try and go against Sari anyways, so all he could really do is watch and wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *yes, they actually use the word demon in place of the word daedra in the actual TES games more than just on occasion. Yes I hate it but, it’s canon, and Asylum was trying to use the simplest words possible to explain with  
> **the realms of Oblivion popped up from the waters, contrary to what Asylum just said. The only thing that “lives” there is Sithis and all of the souls him and the Dark Brotherhood have claimed, and he’s the one who created both aedra and daedra, which is a good reason to fear him, god or not.


	31. A Madman's Many Mistakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to jjstarnerdgirl, you know which part I wrote for you

    Ghost absently ran his hand over the stitched flowers on the strap of his bag as he walked back to the magic room, as he had come to call it in his mind (he’s very good at naming things, you see).  He seemed to be getting better at navigating the castle, though it was tiring as all hell. If this was what using magic is like no wonder Asylum basically shut himself away from the outside world to make the portal.  And no wonder he was completely beat when the ladies broke them out of prison, if it took this much concentration to just walk through the castle normally then he couldn’t even imagine how much energy it takes to cast spells AND fight with a sword at the same time.  Maybe Sari’s right, he’s more competent than most everyone gives him credit for.

 

    Nah.  Guy’s an idiot, no getting around that.  A magically adept idiot, sure, but moronic nonetheless.

    Ghost got to a hallway that at least looked similar to the one that connects to the future portal’s room, so logically the next course of action would be to open every single door in the hall to find out which one was the right one.  He walked up to one of the doors, but put just a little too much effort into pushing it open, making it slam into the wall. He cringed a little at his mistake, but looked inside the room anyways. It was certainly not the room he was looking for, nor were the contents of the room comforting in any way.  Mainly because there were bones strewn all about the place. Skulls on a table from creatures Ghost doesn’t recognize and hopes he never will, shelves built into and jutting out from the wall containing bones of all shapes and sizes, spinal columns hanging from the ceiling by strings, and the unmistakable taste of old dust in the air of the room that made it feel like a creepy attic.  This would be a room he would  _ love _ to investigate further into, but he already had a mission and did not know how time sensitive it was, so he unfortunately has to leave this very concerning room behind in search of the magic room.

    Leaving that room behind, and not bothering to close the door, he went to the next door in the hall, on the other side and in the middle of the wall.  This time he opened the door much slower, making him somewhat anxious to find out if he got the room right this time. And, based on the bubbling potion, or “potion”, in the corner he could see through the cracked open door, he was right.  Opening the door some more, he saw Asylum drawing with chalk in the circle he created, making the patterns even more complex.

    Ghost opened up the door all the way and nearly jumped out of his skin when he scanned the room.  In the other corner opposite the door stood a very tall and very statue-like man with brown hair and fur plated armor, staring back at him unblinkingly.

    In response to Ghost’s little freakout, Asylum put down his chalk and looked over at him quizzically, as if the creepy man that stands in corners silently was a normal thing.

    “Who the absolute  _ hell _ is that??”  Ghost pointed at the figure, who had given no reaction.  Asylum looked over to the corner that Ghost pointed at and jumped a bit himself, then pouted angrily at the smudged chalk that reaction created.

    “Jerry!!  Get out of here, there’s dangerous magic!!  Shoo!” Asylum made waving motions towards the door.  The giant slowly animated and lumbered out the door, Ghost not having to be asked to move out of his way, thoroughly creeped out by the fact that the animal skin-clad man swiveled his head to observe Ghost almost the entire time he spent walking out of the room.

    “Sorry about that.  He’s Jerry. Got killed in a venture that went awry.  He came back but… he’s been… off, ever since then. Not that he was particularly sane to begin with.”  Asylum explained, with too much nonchalance, in Ghost’s opinion.

    “So you just have a  _ ZOMBIE LIVING IN YOUR HOUSE? _ ”

    “Of course not!  You’ve already seen the zombies around here; Jerry’s more of a case of reincarnation gone sideways.”

    Ghost ran a hand down the side of his face at Asylum’s misplaced indignation but decided to cut this enlightening conversation off at the pass.  “ _ Anyway _ … got my bag back.”  Ghost said, holding said bag out like a caught fish.

    “Nice!  Now choose something to sacrifice to the void forever.”  Asylum went back to drawing on the ground.

    Ghost let his arm drop back to his side, an unimpressed look on his face. “You know, I expected you to say something about, I dunno, its  _ appearance  _ or something?”

    “Why would I…” Asylum started, looking up to see why Ghost was pestering him now, “oh.  Nice flowers. Really livens it up; was looking pretty bland before.”

    Ghost rolled his eyes and finally relented, kneeling on the floor next to Asylum so he could rummage through his stuff.  After scavenging in the bottom of the bag for a minute, Ghost pulled out a handful of broken pencils, “will these do?”

    Asylum looked over at the ends in Ghost’s hand and squinted slightly in confusion.  “I don’t know what they are, but should work. Put em over near the candles on that shelf.”

    Ghost got up and did as he was told.  “Let me guess, you don’t have pencils here, either.”

    “Pencil?”

    Ghost only sighed at Asylum’s confusion, deciding that trying to explain basic writing tools was just too much for him right now.  “So how long till the thing is ready?”

    “Is ‘the thing’ a technical term?”  Asylum scoffed.

    “Yes.”

    “I need to know if you’re talking about the solution or the portal to answer your question there, Grand Inquisitor.”

    “You know…”  Ghost flailed vaguely in the direction of the portal markings.  “The thing!”

    “Again, need you to be a bit more specific, Jordan.”

    Ghost puffed up in indignation.  “ _ First of all, _ ‘The Thing’ is whatever it is that’s going to get me home, and  _ second  _ of all,  _ call me Jordan one more time and I will completely lose my mind. _ ”

    “You...do realize it’s my job to make people lose their minds, right?  I’m pretty good at that, so I hear.”

    Ghost took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair, trying desperately to maintain his composure in a place where shooting people isn’t an acceptable coping mechanism.  “Of all the gods to be stuck with. It had to be you. The crazy one.”

    “The only one crazy enough to be willing to help you.”

    Ghost made a sound somewhat like a gurgle.  “Please. I am  _ begging  _ you to answer my question, for  _ once _ .”

    “Look, the time it takes to make this portal relies on a huge number of factors.  Ones that I don’t care to run through because I’m a bit occupied actually getting the portal up.  So it would probably help if you  _ stopped nagging _ .”

    Even though it was the truth, it wasn’t what Ghost wanted to hear, based on his expression shifting from annoyance to dejection.  “Right. Okay. Whatever. I’ll just go, then.” Ghost walked out of the room and closed the door, shoving his hands in his pockets and walking down the halls with no clear direction, leaving no time for Asylum to process what was happening.  The latter, meanwhile, sighed and returned to his work, figuring he better take advantage of the solitude to gather his thoughts and make some progress. Not like he could leave to chase after Ghost and form a portal at the same time.

* * *

Ghost didn’t know how long he was wandering the halls, and at this point he didn’t care.  At least, not consciously, he didn’t. His mind was full of anxieties, chief among them the notion that even though he was trying, Asylum ultimately didn’t know what he was doing.  Back home, trial and error problem solving was perfectly fine and had little consequence but  _ here _ , every potential misstep could ruin  _ everything _ , possibly forever.  The possibilities were endless, and all Ghost could see were the ones with bad outcomes.  And there were lots of ones with bad outcomes. Hell, just lying in the dirt seemed to have a chance to kill him, he didn’t even want to  _ think _ of how small the chances were that the portal Asylum was attempting to make would even work.  But left on his own, with no one to distract him, think he did.

Ghost opened yet another door and was near blinded at the light that shone through it.  Once his eyes adjusted, he immediately recognized it as Mimi’s garden, though all of the gardens might as well be hers if he remembered right.  The smell of the flowers, just for a split second, shifted his mind’s gears away from anxiety, though it came right back. He opted to sit on the ground, not feeling like taking the effort to actually find a proper seat.  He poked at the dirt a few times, letting time pass around him as his mind continued to be a swirling cocktail of different and flavorful anxieties. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear when the door opened behind him.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Ghost turned around to see Mimi standing there, hands on her hips and eyebrow raised questioningly.

“Not really.”  Ghost mumbled, going back to pulling up blades of grass.

“Then I’m sure you won’t mind if I just--” Mimi proceeded to tromp up behind him and plunk down across from him.

Ghost just sighed, flipping his hood up to serve as an emotions shield.

“So what’re you doing in my garden?”

“Oh, you know.  Agonizing over the unknown.  Beating myself up. The usual.”

“Would the unknown happen to have anything to do with the portal Asylum is currently trying to build?”

Ghost’s only response was burying his face in his folded arms.

“That bad, huh?”

Ghost grunted.

“Listen, Asylum has this.  You just need to be patient.”

“But he said he doesn’t know for sure that portal will even work!  If he doesn’t know, and I don’t know, then  _ nobody knows anything,  _ and I  _ hate  _ not knowing anything!”  Ghost burst out, throwing his arms out for emphasis.  “For all I know, I’m going to be stuck here for the rest of my  _ natural  _ life, and then I’ll  _ die _ , all while my boyfriend doesn’t know what the  _ hell  _ happened!”  Bitterness laced his voice.

“You still messed up about the whole dying thing, huh?  I thought you were acting all weird about it back at the jail.”

Ghost shrunk back into himself at the mention of that particular escapade. “People don’t… die, where I’m from.  Like, they die, but they come back. It’s been like that for a while now. But here people die. They die a lot.”

Everything seemed to be falling into place, from Mimi’s perspective.  “Asylum’s not gonna let you die here. Hey, he revived Kajsa, didn’t he?”

“He did  _ what _ ?”

“He never told you about that?  Kajsa wasn’t alive when Asylum found him.  Asylum just brought him back to life and adopted him.”

Ghost rubbed his temples.  “Literally everything here is weird.”

“You just noticed that?”

“Shut up.”

Mimi snickered at the reemergence of Ghost’s sense of humor and then went quiet for a beat as Ghost resumed his absent-minded fidgeting.  "My point being: Asylum has a lot more compassion in his heart than he has the knowledge on how to show, and he isn't going to just let you rot here.  I would say he’d go mad with effort to get you back home but he’s kinda already crossed that bridge."

“Same.”  Ghost said, smiling slightly through his blush.  He flopped onto his back. “I just wish it would go faster.”

“If Asylum were here, he’d probably say you can’t rush genius, or something stupid like that.”

As if on cue, Asylum burst through the door behind them.  “There you are! Oh, hey Mimi. I see you found him first.”

Ghost started tearing at the grass more spitefully.  Mimi gave him a shove. “Knock it off. And yeah, I did.  Sounds like you messed him up.”

“Yeah…”  Asylum said, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.  “That kind of occurred to me.”

“Late, as usual, I see.”

Ghost smirked as Mimi gave Asylum his comeuppance.  Getting over his hurt feelings was easier when he had someone to back him up.

“If it’s any consolation to you, raccoon man, I finished drawing the lines for the portal, so we just need to let the potion finish before the portal can be made.”  Asylum said, diverting the conversation away from him being roasted.

“In regular people speech, that means the portal’s going to be up soon.”  Mimi explained to Ghost, not letting miscommunications rile up everyone again.

“‘Regular people speech’.”  Asylum grumbled, upset at needing a translator that he didn’t ask for.

“Well  _ sooorry _ Mr. Magic, last time you explained something to Ghost he almost had a panic attack!”

“He did?”

Mimi spoke over the sound of Ghost groaning.  “Yeah, he did, asshat.” There was a long silence as Asylum tried to find good words, his face corkscrewing into many different expressions along the way.  Mimi leaned over to Ghost as this was happening and whispered, “see? He’s not very smart at talking,” which made Ghost chuckle a bit. “Don’t worry, he’ll come up with a sentence eventually.”


	32. It's About Time

Kajsa had since joined the group as they lounge around in the garden, talking and waiting for the solution to finish brewing.  Well, Asylum and Ghost were lounging, Mimi was actually tending to her garden as she had intended on doing, instead of being emotional support and a translator for two dumbasses.

“I wonder if dogs have the same level of consciousness as people do.”  Asylum said, breaking the silence.

“Where did  _ that _ thought come from?”  Ghost snorted.

“I just want to know.  Because most people would never know.  Dogs can’t write, they don’t have hands.  Or thumbs.” Asylum continued with his thought, not seeming to know that Ghost had asked a question.  He rolled over and got close to Kajsa and looked him directly in the eyes. “Tell me your secrets, little man.”

“Whhf.”  Kajsa made a confused and resigned sound as he closed his eyes and sprawled out on the ground, trying to nap.

“I see…”  Asylum looked like he was actually considering whatever he thought Kajsa had said, and went silent again.  Ghost attempted to shoot Mimi a look, but she was busy mumbling to herself as she tended whatever flower or plant that was, Ghost was never up to snuff on naming flora, and was of no help, so he would have to get answers himself if he wanted any.

“Are you always like this?”  He asked.

“Are you kidding?  This is me on a good day!”  Asylum laughed. “That, and all of the energy it took to set up that portal has kinda taken away from the energy I need to, like, filter my madness.  Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Oh no, don’t apologize, your royal nutcase.”  Ghost rolled his eyes. He could just barely hear Mimi snicker from behind her wall of flowers.  Asylum, however, seemed unphased as he continued to coo at Kajsa. “Is it true that Kajsa’s undead?”  Ghost asked more questions, as he does best.

“Yeah!  I learned the dark art of necromancy, this was when I didn’t know how to use my daedric magic, mind, just to bring the little guy back to life.  He isn’t quite the same physically speaking as how I found him but, I’m glad he’s happy now, mooching off my royal status and all.  _ Isn’t that right you horrid little freeloader _ .”  Asylum rubbed Kajsa’s head affectionately.  Ghost was astonished. Every single piece of information on what Asylum could do made him seem like some sort of all powerful evil lich or something but instead he’s just...like That.  ‘That’ being a complete and utter idiot that had caught the love bug that has a dog and a weakness for anything sweet, if his habit of eating baked sweets before they’ve cooled off was anything to go by.

“Don’t you have magic stuff to be doing instead of hanging out in Mimi’s garden?”  Ghost said, not so discreetly.

“I  _ guess _ I could go check on it.”  Asylum sighed and made a big show of getting up, “if I have to go check on the portal magics,  _ you _ have to make sure you have all your stuff together.  Trust me, I’ll know if you didn’t check.” Then he disappeared into thin air, the magic he used leaving residue in the form of a butterfly, which fluttered over and perched on a flower.

“Is he always like that?”  Ghost asked.

“What, the butterfly thing?  Nah, uncontrollable side effect.”  Mimi shook her head, carefully pruning one of the flower bushes with a sharp dagger.

“No I meant-you know what?  Nevermind.” Ghost got up, vaguely frustrated yet again at nobody answering his questions.

“Need help getting to your room?”

“I think I got it under control this time.”  Ghost said confidently, meaning, to Mimi at least, that he was going to get horribly lost.

“You should at least wash up a little bit while you’re there, I know I don’t care but if Sari catches you trying to go home looking like that she’s going to explode.”  Mimi went back to trimming the bushes with a dagger, tossing the branches to the side, where Kajsa waved them around and admired the flowers.

“Yeah, yeah.”  Ghost shrugged off the suggestion as he went back into the halls.  Toast seeing him covered in dirt would be nothing new, so he didn’t need to worry.

Fifteen minutes and only three wrong turns later, Ghost arrived at the guestroom.  He would have flopped down on the bed, which was surprisingly comfortable given the time period, but there were plenty more things Kajsa had found and wanted to give to him.  Sifting through the miscellaneous pile on the bed, he actually found some pretty useful items; some sort of potion that Ghost definitely did not want to test, a dagger hilt, some coins that he saw people using out in the cities, if he kept those he could sell them to collectors for a fortune back home, and some soul gems, all of which he pocketed.  There were also things like flowers and pretty looking rocks and what he really hoped were things used in alchemy, which he just brushed off the bed.

He glanced over to the washbasin for a quick moment, remembering Mimi telling him to wash up or Sari would get upset.  He shook his head and decided on sifting through the dresser for anything he might want to take, which was much more entertaining.

Of course.  In the literal realm of Madness there’s only clothes in the dresser,  _ like there’s supposed to be _ .  It wasn’t even a lot of clothes either, just one outfit that even Ghost knew didn’t match.  He slammed the drawer shut and walked out of the room, double checking that he had his bag with him this time.

And who to run into right outside the door than the one orc he was warned about not even twenty minutes ago.

“Oh, hel-,” Sari paused as her mind processed some things, “are you seriously planning on going back home looking like some sort of dirt atronach?”

“Uh...I guess?  I have no idea what an atronach is.”  Ghost responded, starting to panic slightly when he saw Sari reach behind her back and pull out a rag and a waterskin.

“Unfortunately for you, that’s not my plan.  Now come here before I have to get violent about it.”  And, unfortunately for Sari, Ghost bolted down the hallway in front of her, thinking he could escape.  Compared to a toothpick-thin man whose muscles are probably in the process of atrophying due to malnutrition, Sari was the superior athlete in every way, and was able to catch up with him before he could even turn the corner, even though he had a head start.  She pinned him on the floor with one hand while she poured water on the rag she was carrying with the other. “Why do you always have to make things so difficult?” She started scrubbing his face, and Ghost was too busy trying to avoid the face cloth as much as possible to respond.  “There, was that so bad?” She moved so Ghost could get up and he scrambled to his feet.

“YES.  That was  _ HORRIBLE. _ ”  Ghost’s face was red and irritated from Sari scrubbing it with an itchy cloth, he dusted his hoodie off.

“Oh, do you have that weird thing where certain textures are unbearably uncomfortable like Asylum does?”

“What?  No!”

“Then stop complaining.”  Sari paused with authoritative silence.  “The portal’s practically up, we better hurry up.  Come on, I know a shortcut.” She grabbed the cuff of Ghost’s sleeve and tugged him along, somehow arriving almost immediately to the magic room’s door.

“Oh so  _ you _ can make the halls do what you want.”  Ghost was bitter, perhaps for the last time in this castle at all.

“Well I should hope so, the lord is my husband after all.”  Sari chuckled and opened the door, revealing a much different scene to what Ghost remembered.  Where chalk was once on the floor, there were deep purple burn marks, the entire room was lit only with the candles, tallow, if Ghost remembered properly, just barely illuminating what Ghost really hoped was Asylum standing there, mumbling what was probably some sort of incantation and holding a staff in his hands, making small gestures with it.  The varla stone lay in the middle of the magic glyph, glowing faintly with a white light that contrasted the muted yellows of most everything else and the ominous purple of the glyph itself. “We’re here now, ready to go.” Sari said softly, as to not spook Asylum out of his concentration. He nodded slightly, if Ghost blinked he would have missed it, and pulled out the broken pencils from his pocket, staff floating in midair, still making the same movements as it was when Asylum was holding it.

“By night and flame and shining rock,”  Asylum snapped the pencils in his hand and let them fall over the varla stone as he spoke his incantation, “may these items break thy hidden lock.”  Asylum immediately stepped out of the circle when he was done with the pencils. “ _ Alberolingarn! _ ”  The stone shattered, releasing a blinding light and an ear piercing sound that left everyone in the room in a state of confusion and down two senses for a good fifteen seconds, if not more.  When he was able to see again, Ghost looked back up to see a portal glowing blue, and almost collapsed with a sense of relief, if Sari didn’t catch him.

“You know, you should have warned us of that.”  Sari said, voice louder than it usually is due to her ears still ringing.

“In my defence, I didn’t know that would happen.”  Asylum rubbed his eyes, trying to get them to clear up.  Mimi and Lena showed up behind Ghost at the door, weapons drawn.

“Everything alright in there?”  Mimi asked tentatively.

“Yep.  All’s fine, didn’t know the Varla stone would explode in the process is all.”  Asylum responded, as if he wasn’t just blinded and deafened for a significant amount of time.

“Ah, good.  Need to get this blade sharpened anyways.”  Mimi sheathed her sword, as did Lena, though the latter looked disappointed.  “Guess this would be goodbye for us, huh kid?”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”  Ghost, for some reason, felt a little sad about leaving.  The people here weren’t completely bad, as he had come to realize.

“Only if the portal leads to the right place.  I’m going to be going with you to make sure.” Asylum reminded.

“Right!  That reminds me,” Sari handed Ghost a hempen bag, filled with...something, Ghost didn’t know yet, “these are for you, bought them fresh from the oven in the city.  They aren’t as good as mine but you need to eat something. And Asylum, if you’re not back by sundown I  _ will _ be going in there after you, no if’s and’s or but’s.”  Ghost looked inside the bag and saw a handful of baked goods, then closed the bag and put it in his own bag.

“Don’t worry my love, I’ll be just fine.”  Asylum walked up to Sari and stood on his tip-toes, planting a kiss on her cheek.

“Well we’ll see about that, won’t we.”  She smiled.

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

“Perhaps a bit of both.”  Sari giggled when Asylum averted his eyes and pouted slightly.

“Okay, let’s go.  Don’t know how long this portal’s going to stay up.”  Asylum coaxed Ghost along. Before either of them could set a foot near the portal, however, a familiar whine made its way down the hallway, and Kajsa muscled through the crowd, ignored Asylum, and beelined directly towards Ghost.  Kajsa hugged him but it wasn’t as bone crushing as last time, as if he were consciously trying to not hurt Ghost, and the latter didn’t want to ponder the sentience level of a zombie troll at the very minute.

“Come on, I’m going home now.”  Ghost wiggled around a bit, but nothing that could really constitute trying to get out of Kajsa’s grip.

“Kajsa, get down.”  Mimi told Kajsa, and he did as he was told, however reluctant he may have been about it.

“Now, you sure you have everything?”

“ _ Yes _ , I’m sure I have everything.”  Ghost huffed, though his heart wasn’t really in it.  He was too excited to fully communicate his trademark irritation.

“Need me to hold your hand while you go through the big scary portal?”  Asylum teased.

“I’m not a five year old crossing the road for the first time.”  Ghost said, shooting Asylum a look.

“You two are terrible.”  Sari declared, nudging her way in between them to break up any potential fight.  “Isn’t there some place you two need to be going?”

“Yeah yeah I know.  In all seriousness I have no idea how this portal works so we might have to hold hands or something to make sure it spits us out in the same place.”

“Thanks for the reassuring words.”  Ghost said, trying and failing to completely mask his anxiety.

“What, can you not be seen holding someone else’s hand?”

Sari nudged her husband.  “I think he’s talking about the ‘not knowing how the portal works’, dear.”

“Right!  Right. Well, even if this doesn’t take us to the right place, it’s a learning experience!  The next one will surely work if this one doesn’t.” Asylum reasoned.

Ghost rubbed his temples.  “I think you should try not talking and just doing the thing.”

“Fine then.”  Asylum walked through the portal without another word.  The last thing Ghost heard before dashing after him was an exasperated sigh; who it came from was irrelevant.

* * *

Asylum stepped out to a place that was almost completely foreign to him.  Sure, what he saw in front of him was probably a house, but it was the most alien design he had ever seen.  “So, this the place?”

“Maybe.  Let me check.”  Ghost stepped away from the portal behind him and took out his gun, which Asylum stepped away from.  He pointed the pistol at a nearby tree and started unloading clip after clip of ammo into it without running out.  “Yeah, seems like.”

“I’m not even going to question things right now.  Just gonna follow you until you find your house or your boyfriend or whatever, make sure you get home safe and stuff.  Sari would have my hide if I didn’t.” Asylum dug something out of his pocket and began to fiddle with it.

Ghost, too filled by hope and excitement to respond, was already almost running towards what Asylum had assumed to be a house.  Asylum followed at a distance as Ghost let himself in and rushed up a flight of stairs to the top floor. Ghost hurled open a door at the end of the hall, not unlike Asylum, and yelled, “ _ Johnny? _ ”

There was a muffled noise from what Asylum assumed was a bedroom and a door opened.  “Sir?”

“Johnny!”  Ghost burst out, bolting towards the tall figure who had just barely emerged from the doorway and leaping into his arms.  Asylum had never heard Ghost speak with so much unbridled…  _ enthusiasm  _ before.

    Must be the boyfriend.

They stood there hugging each other for a while.  No, that’s a lie, Ghost had jumped to get his arms around his boyfriend’s broad shoulders; there was no way his feet were touching the ground.  Honestly, the two of them reminded Asylum of himself and Sari; not that he would ever admit to it out loud. After standing there for a bit longer, Asylum realized that his staring may be a bit awkward, so he slowly made his way back out the way he came, silently glad he was able to help someone with a happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone gets the references in the portal opening incantation, hey you have good taste in high fantasy novels hmu
> 
> gah, it's been so much fun writing this fic! I know most of you don't know it but so much work and planning went into this for so long that it feels weird that it's over? I'm gonna stop writing this A/N before I start getting emotional though gvhbjn


	33. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;)

“Where have you  _ been _ all this time?  Who was that man that stared at me?  What  _ HAPPENED _ ??”  Toast was a flurry of questions as soon as he let Ghost stand on his own again.  He looked at Ghost for the first time in weeks, and then noticed some things that made him ask more questions.  “...does your bag have flowers on it?”

“I’ve been gone for weeks.  And you ask about the bag.”

“I asked a lot of questions to be fair, sir.”

“Alright, might want to sit down for this one.”  Both of them sat down on the bed. “Would you believe me if I said I was stuck in a place that’s like a high fantasy book?”

There was a long pause before Toast spoke.  “I thought I was the only one that had a drug problem in this room.”

Ghost groaned.  “Not  _ that  _ kind of high.  Like, elves and wizards and castles kind of fantasy.”

“Ah, that makes more sense.”

“Okay, so, like… I  _ thought  _ this door I found was normal but when I went through it it actually wasn’t normal and it lead to some wedding.  The people getting married didn’t really appreciate me being there so the guy, who was actually a demonic god of madness, beat me up and kidnapped me.”

“...oh.”  Toast didn’t quite know what to say.

“Yeah.  Then they all harassed me for some reason and locked me in rooms so I would ‘sleep’ and forced me to eat all sorts of weird stuff, it was horrible.”

“How horrible for you.”  Toast said dryly.

“And then when they got tired of holding me hostage they  _ took  _ me places.  There was an entire  _ disguise mission _ I was dragged through.  You know what, I think I can just show you some of the places.”  Ghost dug out his phone from his pocket and looked through his gallery, trying to find a video of one of the places he was ‘forcibly dragged around’.  “Aw what? All these videos are corrupted! If I ever see Asylum again I’m going to shoot his stupid ass face I swear.” Ghost clicked on one anyways. The audio was nearly untouched, plagued by static but understandable, but the visuals were unrecognizable, nothing but snow and neon-colored squares. 

“It’s alright, sir, I believe you.”  Toast reassured when Ghost flopped against him in defeat.

“ _ Stiiiiill.   _ He STOLE all of my meticulous documentation!”

“Who is ‘he’?”

“He!  The guy!  Asylum!”

“Oh.  Fitting name.”

“You know, that never actually occurred to me but now that you mention it I hate it.”

“I believe you and all, but you haven’t mentioned anything remotely fantasy-like yet.”

“Okay, fine, explain  _ this _ then.”  Ghost pulled out the mysterious potion he picked up out of his newly-flowered bag.

Toast looked at it curiously, taking it from Ghost’s hand and holding it up to the light.  “Huh. Strange.”

“Yeah, no kidding.  I have no idea what it’s supposed to do, either.  The only potions I drank were in red bottles, they called em “healing potions”, though I think a much better term for them would be “bone healing juice”.”

Toast took another pause to process information.  “Do you seriously call it that?”

“Not to their faces, no.  But to myself? Absolutely.”  Ghost made a smug face as Toast sighed dramatically.

“And your bag?  What happened to that?”  Toast looked curiously at the stitching on the bag, making pictures of flowers that he had never seen before.

“Oh, Asylum’s wife did that  _ without my permission _ .  Their pet troll chewed my bag so she thought she would help by making it look like an old lady’s handbag.”

“Pet troll?”  Toast was thinking that this is the most confused he’s been in years, if not his whole life.  And that’s saying something.

“Yeah, Asylum said he felt bad when he came across the corpse of a troll so he necromancied him and got a pet out of it?  I’m not sure how true that story is though, he doesn’t seem like the type that feels bad about things.”

“Being a demon does that.”  Toast deadpanned.

“Oh shut up.”  Ghost weakly punched Toast’s arm.  They laid there on the bed for a while, enjoying each other’s presence.

“You should make a documentary about escaping from an unknown circle of Hell.”  Toast mused.

“Oblivion.”

“What?”

“They call Hell Oblivion there.  And instead of Circles they call each section a Plane.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, and apparently going outside to what was apparently the normal world, which they called Tamriel or Cyrodiil, I’m not sure which one is correct, is much more dangerous than staying in a plane of Oblivion with a blood crazed psychopath.”  The irony of that statement was something Ghost would never be aware of.

“Sounds lovely.”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“ _ Yes  _ I’m listening!  I’m just… confused.”

“When are you  _ not _ confused.”

“...that’s a fair point.”

The two sat there for a while on the bed once again.  Toast went to ask another question, but when he looked at his boyfriend his eyes were closed and he was breathing slowly, fast asleep.  He brushed some of the hair away from the sleeping man’s eyes, and took time admiring his face. It had been so long since they had seen each other, he was basically falling apart at the seams without him, to say nothing about the empty bottles he kicked under his bed and called the room clean.  He might as well take a nap too, it’s been a while since he slept well anyways.

* * *

In just a few days, things returned to normalcy.  Well, whatever could pass as such around them. Complete with the interns bugging the Hell out of both of them, but Ghost was somewhat glad that it wasn’t a group of four infinitely powerful people harassing him.

“Do you know if anyone planted fruits around the yard sir?”

“They better not have, why?”  Ghost got a sinking feeling.

“Well, there’s a grapevine growing around the railings of the back steps.”  Toast held up a bunch of grapes to prove his statement, and Ghost really,  _ really _ felt like punching something.


	34. Extra Special Bonus Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I once promised that if this fic reached 300 reads, that I would post all the silly titles that me and my friends used to refer to this fic. Now that time is upon us. Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fun drinking game is to take a shot every time Jimmy tried to show his face in this fic

In no particular order:

  * Why Can't Everyone Have A Funky Good Time
  * Two Men Yell At Each Other And Almost Die A Lot: the fic
  * Every One Roasts Asylum: the fic
  * Ghost Gets Taken Places: the fic
  * Sad Ghost Hoots Then Scoots
  * Terrible, Dumb Men Accidentally Bond Without Knowing, Upset At Result
  * Two Crime Men Have To Work Together: the fic
  * It's Always Sunny In Cyrodiil
  * Asylum is Confused: the fic
  * Ghost is Impatient: the fic
  * Watch These Awful Boys That Have Been Through Too Much Try To Coexist
  * Ghost Tries And Fails To Conceal Tears: the fic
  * Everyone Here Is Completely Useless: the fic



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's really wild that this fic, which was written primarily via jokes, has gotten so big. It's amazing!


End file.
